I don't remember exactly when I first got the internet.
Ok, that's a bit of a lie. It was January 1997. A mere 23 years ago.
The internet was rather new. My computer was cutting edge with 28k dial-up modem and a 1.2 Gb hard drive, which someone told me I would never fill in my lifetime. Haha. I think I've created single photoshop files larger than that.
I created a Geocities profile. It was a rudimentary blogging site. There was no such thing as blogging templates such as Blogger has. I don't think 'blog' was actually even a word yet. ("Blog" is a word derived from "Web log")
In order to participate in Geocities, one had to write their own html code.
I used to stay up all night learning html code until my husband got home from nightshift at 6am. Then I'd send the kids off to school and go to bed myself.
The whole internet, and connecting to the world, was new and scary. In an effort to protect myself and my children I only referred to myself as Elzee, and Brandi and Ken became "Jessy" and "Doug" when I wrote about them.
But for some reason that I cannot explain, I used Jed and Tyler's real names. I had actually completely forgotten about the Jessy and Doug thing, so now, 23 years later, I have zero recollection why I chose I to use Jed and Ty's real names, but I suspect I was secretly hoping someone would track them down and steal them.
Anyway, Jed was about ten when I started exposing them to the world, and it was only a few years before the website became defunct. And every couple of years he asks me to find him a copy of the "Tales of Jed and Tyler." And I brush him off, knowing the website is gone.
He asked me again yesterday.
Today I spent a bit of Google time trying to find the archives. And I was successful.
Although, I do admit, that my writing style kinda sucked in those days prior to my 2002-2004 college career taking the Writing and New Media Technology course. It's a bit embarrassing actually. But, resisting the urge to rewrite everything, I have copied some of the entries here.
This post is mostly for Jed's reference. If I ever churn out a book of my life I promise there'll be a little more substance to these anecdotes.
When Jessy was about 12 to 15 months old, she learned a 'cute' little trick from her Uncle Jack. He would scratch his face and make a panting noise. Brandi, in turn would then lift her leg and say PSSSSSSSSTTT!
One day we were travelling in the car and she was sleeping peacefully in her carseat. I was feeling a little bit cold and wanted my husband to put the heater on for a few minutes. I said to him "could you make it just a tiny bit warmer in here?" So he, being the sarcastic character that he is, opened his mouth and exhaled a few deep breaths. Sure enough, without so much as lifting her head or opening her eyes, Jessy lifted her leg and said "PSSSSSSSTT!"
It was the day of my brother's wedding. Someone had taken 3 year old Doug from the church to the reception hall for me. Later, when I arrived at the hall I quickly discovered where my son was. As I was walking across the parking lot, I could see him standing at the top of the stairs. As I drew nearer, I realized with horror, what he was doing. He stood there, pants around his ankles, seeing how far down the steps he could 'shoot his pee'. Meanwhile at the top of his lungs he kept repeating "Psalms 6 and 2" "Psalms 6 and 2". That was his current Sunday School memory work. Well I had to get a bible to look up the verse, and appropriately the verse read "OH LORD, HELP ME!"
It was payday and we were going to go to the bank, cash the cheque and treat the kids to McDonald's. Jessy and Doug were in the back seat of the car and baby Jed was securely fastened in his carseat in the front. For some reason (I don't remember why, now) we had to stop at my brother-in-law's house. Both my husband and I got out of the car to attend to whatever it was that we were doing. When we returned to the car I noticed Jed had a little piece of paper in his hand. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I wrestled the scrap of paper away from him. It was then I discovered it was the last corner of the paycheque. He had eaten the rest of it!! My husband had a little explaining to do the next day when he went to his boss for a new cheque. The worst part of it for me, was having to go home and make supper, because we then had no money to go to McDonald's!
When Jed was 5 years old, circumstances were such that my 3 year old nephew, Tyler, and his 6 month old sister came to stay with us for four months. Tyler and Jed usually got along very well. Many times I wished they would fight more often because at least if they were fighting their minds were occupied. One on one, both Jed and Tyler could be a bit of a handful but together there are no words to describe their behavior. I don't think they intentionally set out to do bad things, they just had a way of convincing each other that what they were about to do would be a good idea. The following little stories are little things I wrote down during the first three weeks we had Tyler. These are honest to goodness, unembelished true happenings that all took place within a three week period. By the end of the three weeks I quit writing everything down because I just didn't have time for it. Somehow we survived that 4 months and even looked forward to the times Tyler would come back and stay with us again. He stayed with us off and on for 5 years.
The first little incident with Jed and Tyler happened the very first day, the very first time they went outside together. In the basement they had found a can of white spray paint and decided that the garden tools, their rubber boots and the bumpers on the car would all look better in white.
Why I still haven't landscaped the yard
A few days before Ty arrived, I had picked up my perrenial plants, shrubs and trees. We had lived on our 5 acres of unlandscaped property for a few years and I was quite excited to be finally planting some greenery. I had wonderful visions of my blooming lilac bushes, different bulbs and shrubs adding color all season long. The maple trees were going to give shade in the heat and an array of color in the fall. All of these wonders of nature were sitting on the verranda in pots awaiting the day the ground was ready for them. The boys decided they would like to find out just how well my now nice and white shovels would work. When I checked outside I saw that they had finished 'planting' all my plants for me....not at all in the places I had intended them to be. I hadn't intended for them to be in quite so many pieces either! I did manage to salvage 1 lilac bush, so I suppose I can look at it as being not a total loss. And you know to this day, five years later I still have not landscaped my yard. I keep thinking, only about 10 more years and they'll all be gone from home! Then I can move into a nice little finished off house with a nice little finished off yard.
We have a fairly long driveway that is built up, so it has steep banks on either side leading down to a nice little creek below. Well such a situation as this is just too tempting for little boys. Eveything in sight which can be moved by two little (yet extremely strong) boys went over the bank....that pretty well meant anything weighing less than 3 tons. I'm sure the only reason they never rolled the car over the bank was because they never thought of it. If they had put their minds to it, I'm certain they could have accomplished it. Their bikes were the stupidest thing. They would ride them, get tired of them and throw them over the bank. Of course fifteen minutes later they would scream for help getting their bikes back. Well Mommy soon tired of that little game and the bikes remained over the bank for a couple of days. Then the next time it was a couple of weeks.
One day I found a jar of canned peaches over the bank, right beside the empty one with a spoon in it!
Jed was in kindergarten and went to school in the afternoon. One morning after playing outside I called him to get ready for school. I asked him where his blue glasses were, which he had been wearing 1/2 hour before. "Over the bank" was the answer I got. (surprise, surprise) I sent him back out to find them, and of course he couldn't. But he did come up with the silver ones which had been missing!
Then there was spring yard clean up day! We had a fire going to burn some garbage.....silly us to do such a thing before the boys were grown up and gone from home. The first thing we discovered in the flames was Jed's bike.(This was before I decided to leave them over the bank for an extended lenghth of time). Fortunatey the fire was still quite large and they couldn't get too close so not too much damage was done. I yelled at them and warned them of the dangers of fire and all that, but I guess anything short of tying them up probably wouldn't have helped. A while later I found Jessy's great big teddy bear with half his face an entirely different color and shape than it was originally. This time they were made to stay in the house. The next morning I realized that at some point they had gotten back outside. There in the coals were a pair of brand new socks, a pair of skates and Jed's glasses. The skates and glasses were salvageable, the socks were not. I guess we'll never know what else was thrown in and consumed by fire.
As suggested by the title our freezer is in the garage, which is downstairs from the kitchen and living area. Needless to say I should have had it wired with an alarm system. A neighbor was over for coffee one day and we were discussing our respective children and their little escapades. We looked out the window to check on the kids and saw Jed and Tyler walking down the driveway holding hands. Such a sight touches a mother's heart and she is forced to say something she'll regret. Like "You know they aren't always bad. They look so cute and can be a joy to have around." Of course after a second look I realized one of them was holding a bag of frozen strawberries and the other had a bucket of Cool Whip. They were quite enjoying 'dipping and eating'.
My husband insisted on parking the car in the garage where I could neither see nor hear the kids. He insisted "They have to learn sometime." Well please, not on my time! One morning we went to go somewhere in the car only to discover it had been painted white with Cool Whip. The Cool Whip now goes in the upstairs freezer!
Oh yes! The ice cream episode. One afternoon I was cleaning up the yard and went to pick up the ice cream pail that was laying beside the sand bank. The lid was on so I took the lid off to dump out the sand. Underneath 3 inches of sand, the rest of the pail was filled with melted ice cream. My little angels had taken a new pail of ice cream out of the freezer, eaten all they wanted and filled it back up with sand.
Those BIG light switches
It was a fairly quiet day and the baby was sleeping. The big kids were off at school and Jed and Tyler were outside playing. I had five minutes to myself. (Whatever possesses a mother to think she can time 'to herself'?) Anyway I sat down with a cup of coffee. Shortly thereafter the power went out. I breathed a sigh of relief that I already had the coffee made! The power was only out a few seconds before it came back on. It then flickered a few times and went out again. After a few short power outages I realized that while the power was out in the dining room, it was still on in the kitchen and vice versa. I raced down to the ever silent garage, where the electrical box is located. And yes, there standing on the freezer were two inquisitive little boys. With large innocent eyes they turned to me and asked "Mommy, what are all these big light switches for?"
I try to occupy them
I must seem like I totally did not pay attention to my kids, but really it's amazing what these two could do in 45 seconds! One day I decided, I don't care if nothing ever gets done around the house I'm going to spend every waking minute occupying their time, with me at their side. While we were sitting at the table cutting pictures from the Christmas catalog and gluing them on construction paper, Jed unscrewed the lid on the bottle of glue...You guessed it!! That little bottle white glue that takes about 15 minutes for me to squeeze 3 drops out of, became empty in about 4 1/2 seconds, right on top the pile of papers. As I'm cleaning up the glue I hear Tyler say to Jed "Look I'm making a road for our cars". Like an idiot, I thought he was drawing on his page! I looked up to see him with scissors in hand, using the pointed end to scratch a map into my wood table. That map is still there right beside my dinner plate every night.
Let's not forget the event that, I think after 5 years, is the only one that I can still get angry about, if I try real hard!! I'm sure this is the most upset I got with the boys. Doesn't 'upset' sound like such a mild and gentle word? The boys can testify that 'mild and gentle' or even 'upset' are not words they would have chosen to describe their mother that day. Words like angry, fuming, furious, livid and on the brink of murder would probably more suited to the occasion. Jessy's room was (still is) off limits to the boys. All my craft things (which amounted to hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars worth of stuff) was being stored in her closet, which had no doors on it at the time. One day they decided to break a rule and enter THE ROOM....how uncharacteristic of them to disobey! They dumped the large basket containing rolls of ribbon . We're talking 30 or 40 rolls here. Many were completely unrolled but many only half unrolled so there were a few cardboard centers snarled up in the mess too. The bottles of glitter were a real treasure, it looked so beautiful in their hair, the craft stuff, on the bed , in Jessy's clothes and all over the toys. There was a sandwich bag full of one color so it doesn't take too much imagination to realize how beautiful everything was. Of course there were a lot of very interesting things which had to be unpackaged and spread out for closer examination. The absolute most exciting find of the day was the fabric paint. It was 12 or 15 little pots of it, like you get in a paint by number kit. I was amazed at the coverage you can get from that amount of paint. I guess I got a better deal on it than I thought. They had painted the side of Jessy's waterbed, her carpet, her dresser, the wall the door, a wall in the hall and their hands and feet. Needless to say everything they touched or stepped on had spots of paint on it. The worst part I discovered a week or so later. Brandi was in a speech festival, I went to check if her two good dresses were clean so she could decide what to wear. The boys had painted them both with red and blue paint. One dress was about a year old but it was still in good shape and it fit her well. That dress was probably my favorite dress she ever owned. The other dress was the one I had just made for my niece’s wedding. I think she had only worn it twice. Of course, being fabric paint and having over a week to set it never did come out.
You may wonder why these boys can still walk or how they made it to their next birthday. I wonder that myself sometimes!!
You may wonder why these boys can still walk or how they made it to their next birthday. I wonder that myself sometimes!!
There are many little stories I could tell you about Jed and Tyler that could possibly be classified as minor, by comparison to others.
Ty's favorite little trick was to put laundry soap into the washing machine. Being the efficient little housewife that I am, there was always a load of wet clothes in the washer (I blamed that on having 5 kids and living on 5 acres of sand...it was impossible to keep up). Well, our clothes were always nice and clean after getting washed twice, and with 4 times the amount of soap called for.
One day I was putting toys into the toy box downstairs and noticed the toys look quite shiny. Upon closer examination I realized they had tried to open a jar of canned peaches but didn't totally succeed. There were holes poked in to top but they couldn't get the fruit out so they threw the jar into the toy box. It must have happened about a week before because by the time I found it, it had drained all over the toys then evaporated into a thick gooey coating. Many toys went straight to the dump!!
There were numerous other events like smashing glass jars on the basement floor, stealing food, spilling toothpaste and shampoo all over the bathroom and standing on the edge of the bed and peeing into the corner.
What is it about a parent's love? It seems no matter how hard they tried to make me hate them, I still kept loving them! I do thank God, my Father, for His love, mercy and grace to me, which I in turn can extend to my children.
Ty's favorite little trick was to put laundry soap into the washing machine. Being the efficient little housewife that I am, there was always a load of wet clothes in the washer (I blamed that on having 5 kids and living on 5 acres of sand...it was impossible to keep up). Well, our clothes were always nice and clean after getting washed twice, and with 4 times the amount of soap called for.
One day I was putting toys into the toy box downstairs and noticed the toys look quite shiny. Upon closer examination I realized they had tried to open a jar of canned peaches but didn't totally succeed. There were holes poked in to top but they couldn't get the fruit out so they threw the jar into the toy box. It must have happened about a week before because by the time I found it, it had drained all over the toys then evaporated into a thick gooey coating. Many toys went straight to the dump!!
There were numerous other events like smashing glass jars on the basement floor, stealing food, spilling toothpaste and shampoo all over the bathroom and standing on the edge of the bed and peeing into the corner.
What is it about a parent's love? It seems no matter how hard they tried to make me hate them, I still kept loving them! I do thank God, my Father, for His love, mercy and grace to me, which I in turn can extend to my children.
One thing I've learned through the trials of mothering is:
"God's grace is sufficient"
