Early Days of Mike and Liz
Mike got 2 the part of his reminiscing where Liz was a baby and he was her annoying older bro:
Hey, Mike, did Mom ever end up calling U last nite? I had a v. gd all-night study session w/Ger, and I got back here while Mom and Dad were still asleep, so I don't think NE1 noticed.
Apes
P.S. Dunc, R U sure U can't ever move back 2 Mboro? Ger's talking abt auditioning new bass players, but it wdn't B same w/out U. If we changed bass players, I think mite need 2 call the band 4Nevah and Eva.
April,U know, I can't help wondering Y Mom doesn't do sum of this foto-reminiscing w/Merrie if she thinks it so important. Or even w/me. There's lots of stuff I've never been told abt from B4 I was born.
[Formerly little sis.] I continued to tell my daughter about my life with my sister Elizabeth. This time I had pictures in the photo album I actually remembered instead all those pictures from the rest of this week. I told my daughter, “At first, I was really jealous of my little sister. I wanted everything she had.” Then I showed my daughter a picture of Elizabeth in footy pyjamas, leaning back on a striped blanket and drinking a bottle by herself, with her legs in the air and I was doing the same. Then I kicked my legs in the air the same as Elizabeth. Then I lay on my stomach and drooled just like Elizabeth. Then Elizabeth rolled onto her back and did her business in her diaper. I stopped imitating her after that. The picture of me showed me on my knees with my hands between my thighs saying, “Y’know, ‘lizabeth…You don’t have such a great life after all…” I told my daughter, ”This was a great revelation for me. I realized that no matter how much attention Elizabeth got that I didn’t get because she was little and cute, it was still better to not have to poop your pants and wait for someone to come and clean it up.”
My daughter said, “Well, duh, Daddy. Where did that dolly with the pig-tails go?” I said, “I don’t know. Maybe we sold her in a yard sale.” My daughter said, “No, Daddy. I mean in the pictures. The dolly looks like she is crawling off the blanket. Is it one of those dollies that can walk by itself?” I said, “I don’t think so. You’re right. The dolly does go off the blanket by itself. That is weird.” Of course I had to play ignorant for my sharp-eyed daughter. I think she would be a little disturbed, if she heard the real story about the dolly and what it took to finally destroy her so she wouldn’t harm anyone ever again. I get the shivers just thinking about that nightmare dolly.
It’s been a rough week of looking at pictures with my daughter. Mom says I can take a break tomorrow, but I will probably be back at it on Monday.
Love,
Michael Patterson
Hey, Mike, did Mom ever end up calling U last nite? I had a v. gd all-night study session w/Ger, and I got back here while Mom and Dad were still asleep, so I don't think NE1 noticed.
Apes
P.S. Dunc, R U sure U can't ever move back 2 Mboro? Ger's talking abt auditioning new bass players, but it wdn't B same w/out U. If we changed bass players, I think mite need 2 call the band 4Nevah and Eva.
Labels: gratuitous reminiscing, Liz, Merrie, Mike
posted by April Patterson @ 8:27 AM
6 Comments:
At 9:57 AM,
Anonymous said…
"Studying," eh?
I'm gonna go punch Gerald in the stomach.
At 1:39 PM,
April Patterson said…
ger's in bed w/a bruised stomach again. i'm going over there w/sum soup.
apes
At 1:49 PM,
Anonymous said…
April,
Formerly little sis. Mom did call me last night, but it was mainly to make sure I knew what I was supposed to do with today’s pictures, i.e. talk a little at the beginning but let the pictures speak for themselves. She seems to have thrown herself into this “High Bridge” thing, and I doubt she will be thinking about much else for a long time to come, except for getting Elizabeth and Anthony finally married, eh?
I remember my all night study sessions back when I was in J-school with Josef Weeder. They were a lot of fun, and mainly for reasons that had very little to do with studying. I hope you and your boyfriend Gerald had just as much fun studying as Weed and I did. I wonder if I can get mom to let me show some old pictures of me and Weed. She seems to be mostly interested in pictures of me when I was really little. She’s says not many people saw me then, and now more can. I wonder if mom kept me and Liz sequestered from the public for some reason (maybe Liz’s breath?)
Love,
Michael Patterson
At 5:19 PM,
April Patterson said…
i guess liz's breath wd b as gd an xxplanation as ne.
it was a v. v. good study session. we both learned a lot!
apes
At 6:51 PM,
April Patterson said…
hey, so mike e-mailed me an' sed he was going 2 the park w/dee and the littles so he'd have sum present-tense stuff 2 comment abt the next time he posts. he was hoping one of the kids wd do sumthing that wd make him or dee look gobsmacky. i think.
apes
At 1:59 AM,
Anonymous said…
April,
Dearest future sister. There are times in my life when I have wished that I was able to lower myself to take a gift from my mother-in-law, Mira Sobinski, to get new baby equipment, if for no other reason than to get her to be quiet about it. For example, we have a baby back carrier I use to carry my son when the whole family goes on long walks to see the changing colours of the leaves. My mother-in-law took a look at our baby back carrier, which is a perfectly fine carrier. In fact, when Gordon Mayes used it to carry his son, it was the top-of-the-line model. But you know my mother-in-law. She will pick, pick, pick at things, and then say something idiotic like, “You are putting your child at risk, not using a new baby back carrier. I will buy one for you.” That would be wasted money. Of course, we had to refuse.
The carrier we have is perfectly nice. But if you were to listen to my mother-in-law talk about how it has no harness straps, so my son isn’t harnessed into the carrier so he could fall out; or how it doesn’t have a strap around my chest so if my arms let go of the shoulder straps he could fall out; or how the seat was set in such a fashion that my son would probably spend most of his ride kicking me in the side; or how the metal frame is just a single metal bar twisted like a question mark at both ends and a proper frame would have a metal bar running both across my back and my son’s back and not bear all the weight of my son into a bar pointed directly into my back. Blah. Blah. Blah. How my mother-in-law can talk about things which are completely unimportant for a good back carrier. If it was good enough for Gordon Mayes, then it’s good enough for me.
Yesterday was a perfectly beautiful day. It was as if the person who colours our landscape usually with pink and purple silhouettes, decided to come out of her slumber and do her job for a change. I decided to wear my usual Patterson man shirt and sweater ensemble; while my lovely wife Deanna opted to wear sunglasses, which she kept taking on and off for some reason, and she walked the entire walk with her hands in her pockets. She said her hands were cold. My daughter was wearing pink and spent most of the first part our walk through nature carrying a maple leaf and saying, “Look! I’m Canadian.”
The leaves were so colourful, I believe they actually attracted the attention of my son. As for me, there were moments when they were so beautiful; I simply had to close my eyes. Of course part of that eye-closing was from the pain of my son digging his feet into my sides. I had to grit my teeth and take it. After all, I am a father and fathers are not allowed to cry when they are doing fatherly kinds of things. It did distract me though. My daughter said she saw a squirrel on the side of a tree, which she said was bigger than her head, but I doubted that. Squirrels only get that big when our friend Mark Trail sees them.
We were going along pretty well, when I suddenly snapped. My lovely wife Deanna said, “Don’t snap at me like that, Michael.” I tried to say I wasn’t the one who snapped, but it certainly did sound like that “Snap!!” came out of my head. Fortunately the rest of the walk, there wasn’t any more snapping. However, I could tell my wife was upset, since her body width suddenly exceeded mine, and I got the feeling it would be awhile before my more kind and gentle, feminine wife would reappear again. My daughter jogged along with her arms curiously kept close to her sides, and my son wiggled and dug his feet into my hips again and again as he reached and pulled and reached and pulled. I think he must have been watching my lovely wife Deanna’s exercise video and decided to do an imitation of it, while we were walking.
After several minutes of this, my head began to bow low from the pain of the back carrier. My daughter sensed my distress and took my hand. She said, “You can make it daddy!”
We got back to our house and I felt things were not right. The front door had its usual half-circle of glass, but the handle was different and the wall where we hang our coats had bent and moved closer to the door. It was quite disconcerting. Deanna had her sunglasses off and she lifted my son off my back, while my daughter slunk over to the corner and took off her pink coat in an awkward fashion, which attracted my attention.
When my lovely Deanna got my son onto the floor she noticed a few things coming out of his pants which were not the usual things which come out of his pants. I can tell you for once I was relieved when my gobsmacked wife said, “Look what’s coming out of your son’s pants!” to find it was only leaves this time. Of course the reason my son gave for putting leaves down his pants instead of in his coat pockets did involve his observation of me and some rolled-up socks, so I can’t say I am wholly blameless in his interesting storage techniques. I did learn I will need to keep the door on our bedroom locked when I am dressing. All of these things were quickly forgotten when we discovered my daughter had put a very large squirrel in her coat.
As it turns out, she was exactly right about how large that squirrel was. Fortunately for us, we called up our friend Mark Trail, and he was able to find a place for this squirrel, which my daughter named “Biggie”. As Mark drove away with Biggie, my daughter cried the bitter tears of one who has a lost a friend she grabbed off a tree during an afternoon walk through the woods. My son cried too, when we put his leaves outside. And of course, Deanna cried because everyone else was crying. It was an emotional day.
After today, I look forward to staring at more photo albums pictures with my daughter. They may be dull, but they don’t chatter at you and bite.
Love,
Michael Patterson
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