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Thinking back to my children’s childhood brings to mind all of the things we learned together. God did not include an instruction manual on how parents raise their little bundles of joy and it was a learning experience for not only my children but my husband and me as well.
How I coped with some of the things my children did was at times a struggle to maintain my cool. Take for example when my little darlings decided to go to the gravel pit to play. My hair nearly stood up when they walked in with red clay all over new sneakers and their socks you couldn’t see them for the clay. Getting red clay out of white socks is impossible and sneakers that was another matter all together.
I learned early on not to buy white socks because where we lived we not only had red clay but blue clay in the gravel pit. All the children played there and rode their bikes there as well. The hills in the gravel pit were just perfect for riding bikes up and down and through muddy water left from the rain.
I remember the big culvert where the water drained from that lovely pit and how my daughter followed her older brother, tried to jump down from the top of the culvert into the water, and ended up in the emergency room getting four stitches in her head. All thanks to God, it was not as serious as it could have been but my hair turned a little grayer from that experience.
That was before computer games of any kind and children played all day outdoors. The time that literally took the cake was right after a big rain and outside our house was a very large hole, which of course was filled with muddy water.
I always listened closely when my children were outside playing and when things became too quiet I knew they were up to something. What I witnessed that day nearly caused me to choke. I looked outside and there they were naked as the day they were born washing their clothes in that mud puddle. White underwear now brown, socks, shirts, pants and sneakers a lovely shade of brown. I nearly swallowed my tongue.
After spanking them and giving them a bath I put on clean clothes and sent them outdoors again with specific instructions not to play in that mud puddle. My neighbor came in quite upset because I had spanked them for mimicking mommy-doing laundry. I had to laugh after that because she had witnessed the whole scene and described everything they did in detail. Kids back then were different then children of today. They did not watch TV and they ran and played with the neighborhood children all day long. The neighbors took the responsibility of keeping a watchful eye on all the children and everybody shared a common interest in each other’s little ones. Life back then was a little slower and neighbors were not only neighbors but also friends.
This is a poem written in memory of those wondrous days of my children’s childhood.
“Kids Are Something Else”
Kids are something special.
Kids are truly swell.
Kids keep you on your toes,
but only loving parents know how that goes.
I heard one mother exclaim!
“My son just swallowed his goldfish.”
Some of the things that a kid won’t do,
it makes you wonder how they make it through.
My neighbors little boy decided to run away.
We looked from him most of the day.
We hunted and hunted for several blocks
and found him at home asleep in his toy box.
Do you remember when your kids learned to ride a bike?
Remember how the wheels waggled before they wrecked;
but back up they got and away they would go until the
learned to ride just so.
Kids are tumble-some and tough
and growing up can sometimes be rough,
but all thanks go to God above for sending
them for us to love.
You sometimes wonder how kids survive.
How these precious creatures come out alive.
With bumps, lumps, cuts scrapes, and welts
but then again---kids are something else.
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