Happy Mother & Mother Figures Day!
A few Mother’s Day posts from me...
Mom:
You know what I was thinking about the other day? Little Thinker tapes. Who remembers these? Mom bought us a bunch. You listened along with the cassette as the narrator described the journey you were on - “Our submarine is diving down to the bottom of the ocean. What’s that we see? A shark! There are 440 different kinds of sharks. What sort of shark is this? Can you draw a picture of the shark we see?“. Then you would pause the cassette and draw a picture of the shark and then push ‘play’ when you were ready to keep going. Mom would put us at the kitchen table while she did laundry, dishes, made food. And when we were done with our pictures, before we pushed ‘play’ on our adventure, we would show her what we had drawn. It didn’t matter how terrible the drawing was, she always found something to compliment - staying inside the lines, color choices, imaginative type of shark/whatever. She would enthusiastically tell us how amazing it was and then - even though we all knew, us and her, what came next - she would ask us what would happen next on our adventure, as if she didn’t have the tape memorized by heart. That was the kind of Mom she was. And I miss her. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!
Sis:
A second Mother’s Day post from me...there was a little contest on a FB group I follow to write about your mother for Mother’s Day. Like so many on the post, I chose to write about my second mother figure. In my case, my big sister.
My sister has always been a caretaker to me. My parents told her when I was born - & she was 5yrs old - that it was her job to take care of the baby. I came home from the hospital on my third day. My parents laid me in my crib & promptly passed out with exhaustion. And then I began to cry. And cry. And cry. My sister - who had a beloved Betsy Clark doll - crept over to my crib & put her baby doll in next to me. The story goes that I immediately stopped crying. That was the first time my sister took care of me, but it was far from the last. I’m disabled & when I reached the point of needing a caregiver - 27 yrs after she gave me her baby doll - my sister didn’t hesitate to suggest we live together. And these days she’s my best friend. And that baby doll - that I dubbed DD as a toddler bc I could not say the word Baby? Well, I still sleep with her every single night. She’s on her 8th body & missing most of her hair, but she’s as much a comfort to me today as she was the day my sister gave her to me. So you see why I took this chance to write about my sister.
Me & my baby doll, DD, circa 1979.
Random internet pic of a Betsy Clark doll, showing what DD would have looked like when she started out as Sis’ doll.
This is my DD today, looking as loved as she is.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms, big sisters, aunts, female caregivers, foster moms, female teachers, female mentors & mother figures out there!
This entry was originally posted at https://dodger-sister.dreamwidth.org/252753.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Mom:
You know what I was thinking about the other day? Little Thinker tapes. Who remembers these? Mom bought us a bunch. You listened along with the cassette as the narrator described the journey you were on - “Our submarine is diving down to the bottom of the ocean. What’s that we see? A shark! There are 440 different kinds of sharks. What sort of shark is this? Can you draw a picture of the shark we see?“. Then you would pause the cassette and draw a picture of the shark and then push ‘play’ when you were ready to keep going. Mom would put us at the kitchen table while she did laundry, dishes, made food. And when we were done with our pictures, before we pushed ‘play’ on our adventure, we would show her what we had drawn. It didn’t matter how terrible the drawing was, she always found something to compliment - staying inside the lines, color choices, imaginative type of shark/whatever. She would enthusiastically tell us how amazing it was and then - even though we all knew, us and her, what came next - she would ask us what would happen next on our adventure, as if she didn’t have the tape memorized by heart. That was the kind of Mom she was. And I miss her. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!
Sis:
A second Mother’s Day post from me...there was a little contest on a FB group I follow to write about your mother for Mother’s Day. Like so many on the post, I chose to write about my second mother figure. In my case, my big sister.
My sister has always been a caretaker to me. My parents told her when I was born - & she was 5yrs old - that it was her job to take care of the baby. I came home from the hospital on my third day. My parents laid me in my crib & promptly passed out with exhaustion. And then I began to cry. And cry. And cry. My sister - who had a beloved Betsy Clark doll - crept over to my crib & put her baby doll in next to me. The story goes that I immediately stopped crying. That was the first time my sister took care of me, but it was far from the last. I’m disabled & when I reached the point of needing a caregiver - 27 yrs after she gave me her baby doll - my sister didn’t hesitate to suggest we live together. And these days she’s my best friend. And that baby doll - that I dubbed DD as a toddler bc I could not say the word Baby? Well, I still sleep with her every single night. She’s on her 8th body & missing most of her hair, but she’s as much a comfort to me today as she was the day my sister gave her to me. So you see why I took this chance to write about my sister.
Me & my baby doll, DD, circa 1979.
Random internet pic of a Betsy Clark doll, showing what DD would have looked like when she started out as Sis’ doll.
This is my DD today, looking as loved as she is.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms, big sisters, aunts, female caregivers, foster moms, female teachers, female mentors & mother figures out there!
This entry was originally posted at https://dodger-sister.dreamwidth.org/252753.html. Please comment there using OpenID.