Taking our baby home

It was so exciting to bring our baby home. We were anxious to see how Susan would like him. Of course she adored him but he didn't seem too fond of her, he could have done without all the kissing. He was a cute baby but I couldn't do anything with that hair, it stood straight up all over his head. I could have gotten the goo that Ellen used on the Jensen hair to glue it down but it didn't seem like a good thing to do to a baby. Finally at six weeks Mo took him to the barber for a haircut. He was the youngest customer the barber had ever had. After that Mo just snipt it off.

From day one he was very active and loved people, he still does to this day. He loved his sister and laughed at everything she did. He got over that. He liked to drink out of a cup and wouldn't even look at a bottle.

Life seemed to be going well when I got a bad kidney infection and had to go to the hospital.
That was a real problem because Jeff wouldn't take a bottle. I just knew that he would if I wasn't there but he decided to just drink out of cup. I was a basket case just thinking of a baby being weaned at five months. He survived 'm happy to say.

While I was in the hospital for five days, Mo had to run the household, he started to appreciate me after taking care of two babies. One day this little old man, younger than I am now but then thought he was old. He stopped by my room and said,"Bless your heart, my little wife died in that same bed last week." That cheered me up hearing that good news.

A New Baby Boy

We started planning for our new addition. we moved Susan out the crib, poor baby, and got her a new bed. She adjusted well although she was still not two.

I had RH negative blood and Mo was positive so I had to have blood drawn every month to see if antibodies were building up. If the baby inherited the positive blood, then there could be a problem, especially with the second and third child. Since they didn't detect any antibodies I always assumed the babies would all have negative blood. It turned out that none of them had my blood. It was truly a miracle that everything went okay. But it wasn't fun to have blood drawn every month.
My brother was stationed close by and he would visit occasionally. Jeff was supposed to be born on Dec 3, so the time was drawing near. Junior told us to go to the movie and he would baby sit Susan. We went to see "Pal Joey" During the middle of the movie I had a little pain. I made the mistake of telling Mo. Remembering his last experience, he drug me out of that theater and took me straight to the hospital. By the time I got there the pains had subsided and I wanted to go home. Mo wouldn't hear of it, he wasn't about to deliver a baby. The doctor kept coming in and asking me how I felt. I said,"I'm feeling fine let me go home." He would look at Mo and say, "She is so brave I know she is having pain." Well Jeff wasn't born until the next morning which was December 1, Grandma Bachler's birthday, she was so tickled.

He was dark with black hair that stuck up all over his head. He had dimples and looked just like his Dad. In those days you stayed in the hospital over a week. Mo would visit me every night. He had taps on his shoes and I could hear him coming down the hall long before he got there. We would stand at the window and watch the baby, from the beginning Jeff was very active. While I was carrying him he kicked all the time. One day I was playing bridge and he kicked the table and shook the glasses. I carried him low and Susan was high. I knew it was going to be a boy.

I was rooming with a Jewish girl. When they had their baby circumcised it was a big party. It was fun, they know how to have a party. We had our baby circumcised the next day, but alas no party, just a crying baby.






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A trip to Colorado

Susan and I spent a lot of our time alone. I didn't like to drive with her in the car, this was before car seats and seat belts. I didn't want her crawling around in the car. We had a good neighbor next door that had a little girl her age. We put up a swing set and they played
together so well.
We went to the LDS Church but didn't get very close to any of the members because we lived so far apart. Mo was gone so many Sundays we didn't go very often.
I found out I was pregnant again and was sick all day every day.
When I was about four months Mo had to go to a school in Denver, Co. So we packed the car and headed out for a month. The Johnsons went too. We rented a motel room and ate out every meal. Mo and Kay were gone all day so Jenae and I had to entertain each other. She didn't have any children so she helped me with Susan. We usually lay in the bed and watched her play. Janae was a real trooper, I really liked her a lot.
It was late in the season but we had had the biggest snowstorm in the history. We had so much snow we couldn't open our motel door. Janae and I would go out and play in the snow with Susan.
Throurgh the whole trip I was so sick. I had this weird thing happen, I would get all this saliva in my mouth that I couldn't swallow, so I went around spitting all the time. Mo just didn't understand why I couldn't swallow it. If I did I would get really nauseated. He said I should start playing baseball. How I wished he could have experience that wonderful malady.
When the month ended we headed back to South Carolina, and our little pink house. We got a new bed for Susan and prepared the nursery for the new baby. In those days we couldn't find out the sex so we had to pick out two sets of names. When Susan was born we had planned to name her Susan Michelle and he was fine with that as far as I knew. But when it came time to choose the name he told them her name was Susan Kristina. He said she was Danish, not French.

Valentine's Day

Mo loved all holidays, especially Christmas but he liked any excuse to celebrate. On Valentine's Day he would get cards and flowers for me and Susan, he'd ring the door bell and run. He would write wonderful messages on the cards and maybe, just maybe we would get a baby sitter and he would take me out to dinner. We enjoyed a little time alone for a change. I think I still have that first card he wrote to me and Susan. I kept my flowers but she ate hers. He make everything fun and his enthusiasm was contagious. In my family we hardly ever celebrated anything except Christmas, Thanksgiving and the 4th of July was a big celebration.
I can't ever remember having a birthday cake, but maybe I did, it's been a long time.

Susan's First Birthday

What a big day, Susan's first birthday, we can't wait for the party scene. Mo made sure he had it off and we sent out the invitations to all the one year kids we knew. For some reason we thought everyone was going to have a blast, not!!!!!!. It was a blast all right, a room full of crying or should we say screaming babies. Everyone always tells me I teach the word "hot" to my grandchildren by burning them. Well this time it wasn't me. Mo stuck her in her highchairs, put the cake in front of her and promptly lite the candle. I can honestly say that I said, "That isn't a very good idea." She touched the candle flame and joined the crying throng. The kids didn't have a good time, we didn't enjoy it and swore that would be the last one year party we would ever have. Of course it wasn't. When Jeff came along we did it again and believe it or not he had a ball and the kids did too. Maybe we were more experienced party givers by then. To prove what a great success this party was I am going to post a picture in the future. I think Susan would have enjoyed it if her dad had not burned her. Maybe that is how I learned to teach the word hot.

Susan's

This and That

I forgot to tell that we went to West Palm Beach , Florida when Susan was about sic weeks old. It was beautiful there,we would go to the beach and spend the day. We were so careful to keep her out of the sun. That was before the sun screen days. She was very fair and would have burned easily. One day we were at the beach and there was a little baby lying right out in the blazing hot sun. No one was around and we could see that it was getting burned but we didn't know what to do. We tried to cover it with a blanket but we couldn't cover it's head. We were only there six weeks. Mo was going to a school. It was good for us to get away. Susan was so little but we managed okay.

It has been so long ago I'm sure I have forgotten so much interesting stuff, I think this is pretty boring. I did like West Palm Beach, but it was a town of old people, most of them from up North. It was interesting to see so many old brown dried up people that spent most all of their time out in the sun. They looked very hard and I swore I would never get out in the sun again.

We went to St Augustine and had some good sea food. I think they have the best sea food in the world. We found the Fountain of Youth but alas it didn't work on me. Mo loved everywhere he lived, he could always find something good about everything.

He was extremely popular in his squadron . Everyone liked him. He was involved in everything except happy hour, he just came home to his family. He always liked to go to the squadron parties and most of the time he was the MS. He was a take charge kind of guy. Does that remind you of anyone you know? We had a baby nine months and twenty-one days after we were married, and he thought that was just fine. Our friends had a baby when they had been married eight and a half months. He came home one day and said, "Smitty was so depressed today because it was his one year anniversary and he had a three and a half month old baby. It was hard to adjust to married life and parenthood all in one year. We all had babies about the same age and it was fun.

We had four couples that we ran around with, the Eldridges, the Smiths, Huffakers and the Johnsons. I've kept in touch with the Eldridges more than any of the others because they lived in Orlando and I went there sometimes. They had two boys when we knew them and after they got out of the service they had a baby girl. One day they were visiting some friends that lived on a lake. Their little girl got out of the car and ran down to the lake where the other kids were. Somehow she got in the water and drowned before they realized she had disappeared. It almost killed them, we cried together for many years after that happened. Coleen went on to have two more boys but she never had another little girl. They have been good friends. When Steve and Susan were little we decided they would grow up and get married. It didn't happen.

The Johnson's got divorced. The Smiths moved back to Alabama and got involved in the community. Katie had a heart attack and died a few years ago. The Huffakers had a little girl Susan's age and they were best friends. Pam and Susan played together and went to the same preschool. After they moved John would call me every now and then. He became an alcoholic and died too. His wife Pat could never could quit smoking, she was a nurse. She is in a wheel chair now and Pam is taking care of her. I suppose the Eldridges are still in good shape, I think a lot of them. She just published a cookbook and sent me one.