Thursday Trip Down Memory Lane Part 3

As I was enjoying the best 10 minute shower of my life, Corky opened the shower curtain and was holding a crying baby and said "Hurry". I shut the shower off, started drying off quickly and as I looked down to see why I was not getting dry, I saw squirting milk out of both sides. I quickly discovered how this worked, baby cried, milk came down, simple. We were on our own with the boys. Our place had no room for anyone to come and help. I liked it that way. My mom kept calling and wanting me to come stay with her for a week so I could rest. I couldn't say to her that I did not want to be anywhere near my dad with my new treasures. This was the first pure time in my life and I wanted to keep it that way.

We soon got it down to a science and during the night, I nursed a baby, handed him over to dad to burp and nursed the other baby. This took an hour and we did it every two and a half hours. During the day when Corky was at work, I nursed them both at the same time with the help of lots of pillows. That helped cut down on 45 minutes of feeding time, four times a day, giving me 3 extra hours to get things done when they were sleeping. We went to the laundromat once a week with 15 loads of laundry. And we used Pampers at the time. The ones with no elastic in the legs and waist, and one-shot only tape tabs. And no gel stuff that keeps swelling with wetness until they look like a pumpkin butt. We went through a box of 30 per day. My boys did not tolerate being wet. We spent more on diapers than gas for the truck. God made sure I had an abundance of milk on demand. He knew we couldn't afford formula AND diapers.:)

My girlfriend Joanne had her daughter two weeks after I had the boys. On occasions when we needed to leave our kids with eachother, feeding was no problem. We just nursed eachothers kids until mommy got back:) I always hurried because I knew Joanne didn't have the same milk supply as me. My girlfriend Susie had her baby boy three months after me and she had a car!!! We went everywhere together because I would wake the boys up and go anywhere with her just to get out of the apartment. No car seats, just a front seat full of babies.

On one of my daily afternoon walks with the boys in their stroller, I walked past a cute house a block and a half away from our apartment and saw a "For Rent" sign being put out front. I circled the block and came back to take a peek. The owners fell in love with the boys and showed me the house. Two bedrooms!!!!!!!!! Fenced back yard with a plum tree!!!!! Big kitchen with a Laundry Porch leading to the backyard!!!!! Did I mention two bedrooms?? The rent was $185.00 a month. We were paying $90.00 for our apartment. But this house had two bedrooms. And our boys were walking and running and confined to an apartment with no where to play outside except the sidewalk. I took Corky over to the house when he got home from work and he fell in love too. We tightened our belt and took the plunge. We got two dogs and I got a used washing machine for the laundry porch. I was in heaven not having to go to the laundromat and hung my clothes out on my clothesline Corky put up for me. I loved that house. I potty trained the boys in that back yard and my neighbor Jackie was a Christian. We lived there for almost 4 years until we moved into the house we are in now, right after the boys turned 5. We have been here ever since. Only 2 miles from the old house, and closer to the ocean. My girlfriend Susie lived here and they were buying their first house. I asked her if her landlord would rent the house to us and she made a call. Yes, send them $160.00 and we could move in. This was 1976 and we never met them until 4 years ago:) I had to really talk Corky into moving here. The three bedrooms, double car garage, huge backyard and fireplace sold him, not to mention $25.00 less per month in rent and being on the bluffs over the ocean. And here we are!! The boys started kindergarten here, graduated high school in 1989 here with the hugest party we ever had as they knew everyone in high school! Josh's rehearsal dinner in the back yard, and now his kids have his old room here and play in the same yard. Their 20 year reunion is next month and all of their friends will be in town for it. I look forward to them dropping in at the "Party House" here as this was their home away from home. Yes, we were the parents that took their keys at the door, let them "party" and spend the night wherever they found room to roll out their sleeping bags in the backyard or in the house. We knew where our kids were and even though that didn't make it right in some ways, they are all grown with their own kids now and I am grandma to MANY:) Things were different back then weren't they?

The guys are coming to work on the tile today so I am going to wrap it up and continue tomorrow. I never kept a journal of anything, so this is really stirring up memories for me to journal it now. I am hoping to post about my mother since mothers day is coming, but it will be hard for me in so many ways. She has been gone for 9 years now and so much of our "relationship" is blank to me. It just is.

Have a great day everyone if you are still with me and still reading. I feel like I am catching up on a lifetime of memories that I need to write down for myself in case my memory starts slipping out on me:)

Love and Hugs, Laurie