Friday, April 1, 2016

MY 'DIFFERENT KIND OF FRIDAY" POST CONTINUED....

JOHN
It''s been a couple of weeks and so I think it's time to continue on with my posts about my children. And I guess I might as well do it in order and tell you now about my second son, John.  So lets see...John was born at the end of the summer [Sept. first] after one of the HOTTEST summers I can ever remember living through, lol.  He was about 5 days over due [we were living in Fullerton at the time in a little house where we shared the yard with 2 other little houses that sat behind the big house where the land lords lived] and we did NOT have air conditioning!  My labor with John was exactly an hour and half from the time my water broke [and I was not even having any contractions yet] and he was making his appearance.  I guess there was some advantage of being a little over due.  I was only 21 years old so John too had himself a pretty young mama, only now I was no longer inexperienced. He too was not a very easy baby.  He was my baby that REFUSED to nap.  He never, and I do mean NEVER slept longer during the day then about 15 or 20 minutes, until he was a little over a year old. I tried everything there was to try, trust me, but it was what it was.  Now he didn't cry or carry on or have colic or anything, but he did "prefer" to be held or entertained in some way, and with a house and a VERY ACTIVE 3 [almost 4] year old [it was Joe remember!] it was not an easy time.  Now thankfully he did sleep very, very well at night, and I would put him down and there was nary a sound for almost 12 straight hours.  So in those days, that was when most of my work got done.  John was a very, very active guy too and once he was moving I was again RUNNING to keep up.  Together Joe and John were a REAL handful let me tell you.  Right from the start though John had some allergy issues and we found ourselves at the doctors ALOT.  His asthma began before his first birthday and continues to this day.  We did go through about 4 years of allergy shots to manage this and it DRAMATICALLY improved this problem.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  John started big at nine and half pounds, and was always one of the biggest in his class even though he was always one of the youngest as well.  But one of the most amazing things about John was his phenomenal memory.  Honestly we actually have some of his things he could do on tape as my grandmother insisted we tape him, telling us we'd be soo happy to have it some day, and she couldn't have been more right.  I had a record player [remember those?] for the boys and several recorded books that could be listened to in addition to their little songs.  They both enjoyed it, but John way more so then Joe.  He would listen to the stories being read on the records, and follow along in his books.  I still remember it had a little jingle sound it made when you were supposed to turn the page. At this point Joe was in school and John would BEG to "listen to the books" and so I let him. Looking back it might have been a little nuts to let a 3 year old totally work a record player on his own, but he could do it really well and at that point I had added yet another little boy to my life and I was again busy with a newborn. Anyway, one of his favorite books was Disney's Lady and the Tramp.  The record took a good 4 or 5 minutes to go from the beginning to the end.  The guy who was reading on it had a "voice" for all of the animals and their dialog with each other, complete with accents etc.  Well one day we were driving along in the car and John began saying the story from memory aloud, when we realized he could do THE ENTIRE THING without a single mistake.  AND he could do it mimicking the voice and accent PERFECTLY as well.  It was just soo amazing.  Johns memory is legendary let me tell you.  And he still can "mimic" REALLY REALLY well and does several impersonations now as an adult super good.  But I've jumped ahead again, lol.  John began school having just turned 5 years old that Sept, and I was very tempted to keep him home another year.  Most did in those days with Sept babies, especially when they were boys, but John was SOOO big for his age and was SOOO smart and ahead of most academically as well, and had this unbelievable memory, that we decided to go ahead and put him in. And it was both the right thing to do, and the wrong thing if that makes any sense, lol.  John struggled with NOT wanting to go [unlike Joe who couldn't get away from me fast enough] and yet being almost bored while he was there. Both of the boys were going to a pretty fast moving Christian school, but it didn't seem to matter.  John's memory abilities put him at the top of his class almost all the way through school.  It was if in some ways he heard something once, or saw it, and he remembered.  He quickly became the "funny guy" however, probably do to the fact he was very outgoing and personable, but also do to the fact he was frequently "bored" and looking for a way to amuse himself.  Plus remember he could do imitations, and goodness the kids loved the way he could "do" the teacher, the principle, and the other kids. Once during a conference the teacher told me it was soo hard to tell him to stop as she herself found John just hysterical.  Again, because of his memory and mimicking abilities I don't think there was ever a class play or performance where John was not the lead role or the narrator, or the MC. MANY, many a time it was over those years that we sat in the auditorium watching John "entertain" lol.  He pretty much always won first the class, then the school and finally the district speech meet as well. However, needless to say there was a few times John found himself "in trouble" as he just couldn't seem to help himself [or so he thought!] from speaking out when it wasn't time.  But for the most part John sailed through school with a perfect 4.0 or better.  When John was young, around 4, we had him tested for allergies in hopes of getting some relief from his allergy related asthma.  We sat at the doctors office and emergency room soo many times with him it could never be counted up.  But after the testing he began to get allergy shots for the next 4 years!  It was just part of our routine.  He started 3 times a week, graduated to 2 and finally once a week which he did for quite some time, and then finally to once a month.  I am not going to pretend this was easy, because it was not.  I had 3 pretty wild active little boys and we were at the allergy docs it seemed almost daily.  And some of those years I was dragging along whatever kid I might be babysitting at the time for extra money as well.  I never watched more then one at time though as trust me my hands were pretty full, lol.
But by the time we drove to the docs office [which was right after school] we waited for his turn, waited another 20 minutes to see if he had a reaction [he seldom if ever did] and then drove back home we had usually taken care of at least an hour and half if not two hours!  We did managed to get through some homework in the waiting times, but never all of it for sure.  Honestly though looking back, even though it was time consuming and tedious I don't remember any of the boys ever complaining....it's just what we did.  And it did have a dramatic improving effect on John's asthma, and a little medication and inhalers controlled it easily from that point on.  He was hospitalized for one really bad bout when he was in the sixth grade [was that ever scary!] but other then that I don't remember it ever really being a real issue again.  John too was also very good at sports but did not have the same drive for them as Joe did.  I think some of that was from his asthma and the fact that the medications he took make him tired.  But I think most of it was more from his "kicked back" nature and he was WAY more content to sit on the sidelines, crack jokes, and "not get sweaty mom" lol.  He did LOVE playing basketball though both at school and at home,  started football on the varsity team as a mere sophomore, and swam almost everyday after we got a pool.

I think I will end this here as it is starting to get a little long, but I will finish up next Friday if I can.  I am keeping my nose to the grindstone as best as I can as I am down to one week to the shower and 10 days or so until we go to Mel's so I must finish up.   Hope you all had a good week!  Blessings to you all!  Debbie


5 comments:

  1. He must be a riot at family gatherings. Does he mimic you and his dad as well? My son mimics me and it both annoys and amuses me. Thing is, I can mimic him pretty well, too. You must be getting so eager to head out for Mel's.

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  2. It's nice to hear a little bit about your kids! Ahhhh, the trials and tribulations of being a young Mama! I too, was a young Mama!
    xo Kris

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  3. I enjoy the stories of your kids. You did have your hands full didn't you?
    That is interesting about his memory, almost like he has a photographic memory.
    I hope you get everything done like you want.
    I hope you have a lovely weekend.

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  4. These are such enjoyable posts. You were one very busy Momma for sure!

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I am so glad that you would take the time to comment on my thoughts and feelings, it is such a blessing to me!