Thinking Back

The miracle of raising kids and surviving.

I was just thinking back trying to figure out how two people , who had never raised children before, could have managed to raise two girls, in my biased opinion, into well above average, intelligent, beautiful, and kind women and mothers. Even though there may have been a hiccup or two in the raising process, I think we did an above adequate job.

I remember when Shanon, our oldest, was about four years old, I was walking by her bedroom door and stopped to watch her play. She was cooking away with her play kitchen all set up just like Mom's. She was humming and stirring and mixing stuff when she accidently knocked a container off the cabinet and onto the floor. "Well crap" she said.

Shocked by the language coming out of her four year old mouth, I stepped into the room and shouted, probably louder than I should have, "What did you say?"

She looked at me and with complete innocence and repeated the word. I asked where she had heard that word. She said, "Mamma always says that when she spills stuff in the kitchen."

I have never heard Amber, my loving wife, say over a half dozen minimally profane words in the hundred years that I have known her. However, I don't hang out in the kitchen that much. I didn't feel it was necessary to send Shanon or her mother to Profaner's Anonymous.

Then there was the time we were driving downtown when I looked in the rear view mirror only to see Shanon, again, happily waving her middle finger at cars as they passed. I pulled the car over and asked my still four year old daughter who she had ever seen do that. She informed me that was the way her two aunts, who were still in high school, always waved to their friends. Profane Gesturer's Anonymous?

Then there was Shaye, my youngest daughter. Shaye was always getting into something and wasn't very good at hiding it. I could find something that was newly broken and approach her holding it in my hand and ask her why she had broken it. She would nearly always confess then ask how I knew it was her that had broken it. I would always say "A little birdie told me."

That's the way it went, she would do something wrong and I would bluff her into confessing. When asked how I had known, I always told her the little birdie had told me. One day, as I was sitting in my easy chair, Shaye walked over, climbed into my lap, looked at me with as serious a look as a young child could muster and asked "Daddy, just exactly what does this little bird look like?"

I'm not exactly sure when she finally grew out of her bird phobia, but for a long time if there were birds within sight, Shaye was at her best behavior.

Maybe they grew up to be such fine ladies in spite of our efforts. However, if it is acceptable with them, I would like to feel that we did make a difference. I can say, without hesitation, that Shanon, Shaye and Amber, my sweet wife, have made all the difference to me.