the whole church service. She likes to tell the story of how Deacon Dan made a halo around Sister Sandy’s head with his Hot Wheels cars when she first brought Sandy home from the hospital. His Hot Wheels were his favorite toys and wasn’t that so sweet he wanted to share them with his precious sister? Whatever.
I, on the other hand, wanted to make a bigger statement than sharing toys. Like the time Mom had given me mashed potatoes to eat for dinner. I flat out refused to eat them. Mom flat out refused to get me down out of the high chair until I had eaten them. And so began the first of many epic battles of wills between Mom and me. I sat there until the potatoes went cold. I sat there while everyone else finished dinner. I sat there after everyone had gotten down from the table. I sat there while Mom gave the angelic Dan and Sandy their baths. Finally, after she had tucked them into bed, she came to check on me (Hello? Children’s Services? Anybody?). I had fallen asleep in the high chair, face down in the potatoes. Victory was mine.
***
Mom must have been a bigger sore loser than I first thought because she started plotting ways to “accidentally” ditch me.
The first incident occurred at my Grandma Wolfe’s house. I was only about 6 months old. My Dad’s side of the family had gathered for a nice family meal. When it was time to leave, everybody bundled up and loaded into the car. Mom was dreamily watching Divine Dan and Saint Sandy riding next to each other so peacefully in the backseat, when, after they were more than halfway home, she started with a jump and yelled to my dad, “We forgot Nancy!” Forgot, my ass. Luckily, I was Dad’s favorite so he immediately turned around and drove back to Grandma’s house. When they got there, Mom tried to act all flustered like it was some kind of huge mistake that she felt just awful about. Grandma patted her on the shoulder and told her she knew they would have realized they had left me behind soon enough and would return for me. Don’t bet on it, Granny.
It would have been one thing if that had been an isolated incident but it wasn’t. When I was about five years old, we were once again visiting with the family only this time it was at our house. Mom and my Aunt Sarah decided that they would take the kids into town for ice cream. Yeah! Ice cream! Now this was back in the day when going to get ice cream was a rare treat. We were all so excited, especially me, because ice cream was my absolute favorite. So again, everybody loaded up, ignored any seat belts that may or may not have been available, and started off down the road. Once again Mom was checking on her precious Delightful Dan and Superb Sandy when she happened to look in the side rearview mirror. And there was poor little me running down the road after the jalopy, trying desperately to catch up. Mom says she still feels just awful about that and it still makes tears come to her eyes when she thinks back on me running as fast as my little legs could carry me.
Mom would have made an award winning actress, better than Joan Crawford even.
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