Monday Memories

G'Day,
I thought of something I would like to share for the Monday Memories prompt. This is a fairly new prompt and although I have not participated every week since its beginning I do enjoy sifting through my memories and choosing to share or more rightly to record some of them. If you would like to join in the fun please go to my side bar under the heading" favorite reads" and the link will take you there.
I was watching children the other day and thinking that they are such hard work but wonderful and that I wouldn't want to miss any part of their growing and learning.
Which led me to thinking and reminiscing on when my children were toddlers and the wonderfully funny things they did as part of their learning progress.
My eldest son Michael when he was a toddler was a treasure to me and I was sure no parent could ever adore their child more, and of course that he was the smartest little boy ever.
We had been preparing him for the birth of my second child for quite a while and telling him he would soon have a little brother or a sister to play with and he would have to share his toys with them. Well the message got through to his 21 month old mind and as soon as we bought his new brother home from hospital he was eagerly awaiting him in the lounge room of our home. A bassinet was set up in the lounge room near the front window. All prettied up and fresh, and neighbors and relatives came to see the new arrival. Michael was enthralled and ran straight down to his bedroom and came running back down the hall with an armful of his favorite toys and threw them into the bassinet on top his new brother, much to the shock of the visitors and myself who then had to explain that David was too little to share them yet with him. Oh dear, poor little bloke, he did so want someone top play with. I should have gone just one step further and explained that to him before the event. Hahahaha.
Also while living in that house we had a neighbor who was very good to me and often came in to have a cuppa and check if everything was OK with the babies. She was a very large woman and would puff and pant when ever she moved. Michael for some reason took a dislike to her and I couldn't work it out until one day she was standing near the front door and Michael snuck around behind her and was trying to look under her dress with a very puzzled look on his face. I was watching him and thinking "Oh No! Please, please don't turn around and see what he is doing," and trying to draw his attention away from her in as discreet a manner as was possible in the circumstances. Luckily she didn't see him as she would have been most hurt, because she loved him. He was trying to see why her body was in such a strange shape and couldn't work it out so had decided to have a look. Lol.
Also on the subject of my baby boys. I would always take them with me to the supermarket on Fridays when I did my weekly shop. It was such hard work and very frustrating to do so but I thought, well it is an outing for them and seeing other people around was a good thing.
Michael was the sort of little boy that would not be held back from anything he decided he wanted to do and trying to keep him quietly at my side in the shops and juggle his baby brother was a nightmare. Hahaha. As soon as he got to the supermarket he would look down those aisles and think" Hmmmm racetrack" and want to run at full speed along them. I used to think he was trying to knock over as many old ladies as he could in the process, hahaha, well, that is what he looked like he was trying to do.
And the little old ladies? Well they all thought he was just beautiful and took great delight in smiling and trying to talk to him.
And....unfortunately to his little brother as well, who was just starting to talk and learned that he could say, Bugger! and that it always got a reaction. Hahah.
The little old ladies would stop me and say "Oh what beautiful little boys" and addressing them say," Hello what is your name?" David would look them straight in the face with a cheeky grin and say "Bugger!"
They would look surprised and say to me "What did he say?" and I would have to answer back "Bubba, he calls himself Bubba" and try to escape, with a red face.
David was such a smart little bloke. He could work things out so quickly when he was a toddler,
And he had to have his routine, everything done just right or he wasn't happy with it at all. I used to read to the boys each night before bed time, Mike was 3 and a half and Dave probably two and we would sit on Dave's bed and go through their books, probably 4 or 5 each night. David knew every word by heart in each of the favorite books before he could read them. If I changed a word and read it wrong he would say "No that's not what it says Mum!" and correct me, telling me word perfect what it did say. Hahaha. Then at the end of the reading session he would need to have his little routine done just the way it always was or he wouldn't settle down to sleep. I remember once when he wasn't even 2 years old the next door neighbor came in to tell me "Have you heard what David is doing out there?" he was absolutely amazed to hear him sing the alphabet out loud without a mistake, over and over again while sitting in the yard playing with the white pebbles in the garden. Sesame street rocks. Hahaha.
When his older brother Michael was to start pre-school at the age of 3 I took the boys up to the baby health clinic in town to have some tests done on Mike and of course took David along too. The nurse was showing cards and asking questions of Michael and David was answering them all, yelling out all the correct answers over the top of his quieter brother, and the nurse had to ask me to take him out of the room. He is still a little wise guy, hahaha.
When Pre-school started we lived just a few door away in the same street and when I took Michael up there on Pre-school mornings, David would cry and throw a tantrum when we had to leave him there. He wanted to stay and play with all the good stuff and the other kids too. When he saw that I was moving to leave he would run over to the corner and hide in the bean bags and cover his eyes with his hands so I couldn't see him and might leave him behind. If I left him alone for one minute he would run out the gate at home and go straight to the pre-school building, I always knew where to find him. Funny little kid.
Just a year later when it was time for him to start Pre-school he was very very eager to get up there and join in. There was an assistant there by the name of Heather. David couldn't quite get her name out right, he used to call her Heaven, and she loved it.
Goodness I am sure I could write a book on my kids when they were little folks. I better stop or I might bore you all and write more in another post later.
Bye.
Love Linda.