Last week at church, reminiscing the past was discussed. Basically just how mostly all of us like to reminisce. At my my stage in life I find myself reminiscing the younger days of my four children. The good ole days. Until Josh turned three we lived in a mobile home in Clarkston. What fun, simple times those were. Just the three of us. Josh was such a easy child. Go with the flow type of kid. I was always doing something with him. Taking him to the lake so he could walk just along the shoreline because he was a little frightened of the water, walking to the park where I would push him endlessly on the swing, sitting out in our small front yard under a shade tree watching him play in the small blow up pool with Cody, the little boy who I babysat for and was the same age as Josh, watching him dance around to "Barney" on television...
Add one more child to the equation, Matthew Jacob, who came along in the summer of 1992. We lived with John's parents for a few months when we moved from the trailer park to build a small house north of Lapeer. I can almost feel Matthew's chubby six month old body in his terry sleeper pajamas. He was such a good little baby. Give him a few toys to play with on the floor and he was a happy camper. I watched a video not too long ago showing him walking around the backyard at our then new house when he was a little over a year old. He was stumbling around in the back yard, playing in the dirt (think dirt magnet) and sometimes reaching into the small pool that I had set up for the boys. At one point he leaned into the pool and the side of it gave way. I was laughing and feeling bad for him at the same time as I was catching all of this on video. He was sobbing because it scared him and the water was so cold. Flash forward a couple of years and I catch both Josh and Matthew playing in their shared room together. Both are in their warm, cozy, footed pajamas and I find Josh reading a book to Matthew. Awwww! Josh is probably six years old, which would make Matthew around three. A little while later when I check on them again, I peek in through the barely-cracked-open door, to find, at that very moment, Josh 'whamming' his brother. A startled look comes across his face when he makes eye contact with me and realizes that I just caught him. I can't even remember why, but what perfect timing.
Being pregnant for the third time I was wishing of course for a little girl. By this time not only did we have two boys but John's brother also had two boys. A girl was what everyone wished for! We did not find out what the sex of the baby, I kind of wanted to but John was adamant that he wanted to keep it a surprise. On Friday, September 1, 1995 at 7:22 p.m. little miss Rachel Lynn was born. We were so estatic. I kept saying (its on video), "I can't believe its a girl!" What a joy adding her to our family. The boys just adored her. They were always wanting to help me with her. Josh was in first grade, so he was at school all day. That left all of the mauling up to Matthew, and that is just what he did. I have some great video of Rachel and the boys when she was probably about a year and a half. She had a little beauty set, which consisted of the makeup table with mirror, chair and all the plastic hair and makeup accessories. As she sat in the chair, both of the boys pretended to apply makeup, blow dry her hair and also put the play curlers in her hair! At one point they are actually arguing over who gets to do what. Rachel didn't talk until she was probably two. Even then her vocabulary was limited to just a few words. So she was very expressive through actions. When she would fall or hurt herself some way and cry, she would then later replay everything that happened to her to someone. You would ask her what happened and she would act the whole thing out, rolling around, pointing and then fake crying. It was so halarious. She caught on that everyone loved it and would do it on command knowing that we all got a laugh out of it.
When Rachel was just a year old, in fact it was the weekend of her first birthday, we found out unexpectedly that I was pregnant. The first three were planned and even took us a few months before we actually got pregnant. So this was a big surprise. Not unwanted by any means. Shortly after I had Rachel I had wondered to myself if I actually thought I was finished with having children. I wasn't so sure. I loved being pregnant and having that sweet little baby. So, even though the timing was off, I was excited to have another little one. I was sure that I was carrying another girl. When we went to the ultrasound that December it was proven to be another boy! No mistake about it. We had really like the name Alec with my third pregnancy and decided to go with that for him. John toyed with the idea of naming him John, but I did not want a junior. Funny thing, Alec is a carbon copy of his dad. Shortly after Alec was born we sold our house and again moved in with John's parents to build our home that we now have lived in for almost ten years. John's mom was a great help with the kids. John was hardly around that summer, literally going to work as usual and then working on the house until late at night, so I needed an extra hand or two with my large brood. All in all I think that John and I did a terrific job handling the stress of building a new house and adding a fourth child all in the same year. Alec had a sweet disposition (really all four of them did) and quickly found his place in the family. He had such blonde hair until he was about three or four when it turned into the dirty blonde that he now has. Unlike his sister, he had quite a large vocabulary at a young age. Typical of any young child he would often repeat things that were said. Most common with him though was when he was talking, he would end each sentence with, "right mom?" demanding a reply from me. Precious.
As I sit here and type this, I remember such wonderful times we have had together. They now are growing at lightening speed. My firstborn is such a young man now with Matthew not far behind. Rachel has begun to wear a little eye makeup and looks so grown up and Alec is that older elementary child now, torn between being momma's baby and the rough and tough independent boy that he wants to be. Thank God for memories ingrained in our minds, pictures (scrapbooks!) and videos.
I would LOVE to go back, but of course, I cannot.
