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Wednesday, May 05, 2004

PUNKY'S FIRST YEAR 

The two weeks I had to stay in bed drug on. I couldn’t wait to get up. Actually it was a very bad thing for I had been in bed most of the past two months. The added two weeks in bed after bumping all the way home in the ambulance created damage of it’s own. Eventually I was able to get up and pick up my life again…..with baby added.

I had read Dr. Spock (big mistake) and it said not to handle the baby much. That didn’t stop Grampa Strain when he came to visit. He would jostle him out of the bassinette and carry him around holding him on his lap the whole visit. I tried to protest but it got no where. Grampa Strain was programmed a little different than Dr. Spock was. The nurse told me on leaving the hospital to feed him when he was hungry….not to go on a schedule. Babies didn’t always follow schedules.

I had a blue granite kettle to sterilize bottles and boiled them faithfully for as long as it said. I had to wash diapers by hand as I didn’t have that many and without a washing machine it was the quickest way to keep them fresh. At first I had to get up several times a night with Punky but as the months crept on he was down to two and finally one. He lost the black baby hair and grew in some light brown and his blue eyes stayed with him. He was growing into a very pretty baby and I was definitely a proud mama.

We had a very warm spell in January so I bundled him up and put him in the baby buggy. I walked down town pushing the buggy and enjoying the fresh air. I had been inside for too long and getting out was invigorating. The first six months were as hard on Punky as my first six months of pregnancy. He continually spit up almost everything he took from the bottle. It was so frustrating because he would ruin himself, me, and wherever we might be sitting. I did a lot of cleaning up those first months.

Finally we worked through that and he began putting on weight and growing into a busy little kid. I had stopped in the drugstore one day to pick up some things and Verl asked if I would like to come back to work. I hated to leave Punky but we were very much in debt. I told him I would so he said I could start the following Monday. The money was more than I had previously earned and goodness knows we needed it. Grandma Strain kept Punky while I worked and until George got off work. The months flew by and it was almost December again…..he would soon have his first birthday.

I was running late to work one day in December. I had zipped Punky into his snowsuit and hood. I put him in the passenger side of the car and whipped the door shut. I got in and began backing out of the drive faster than I should have. It threw Punky off balance and he fell against the door…..to my horror the door opened up and he began falling out of the car. I grabbed after him with my right hand as he slipped from sight. I had the wheels of the car cut to the left and by some miracle they must have come around on each side of him. He was balled up under the car like a little bag of rags as the wheels came around him, missing him entirely. When I got the car stopped and ran to him he was very white around his mouth and eyes were shut. By the time I got into the house he caught his breath and started crying. I placed him on our bed face down so he wouldn’t strangle if he was bleeding internally. I called Dr. Grassle and he told me to bring him right down which I did. He examined him carefully and told me he would call ahead to Springfield and I should take him up there to have him checked out. I called George at work and we took him right away. They were going to keep him overnight for observation so I told George to go on home and I’d stay with Punky.

He had a punctured lung but no broken bones and not a drop of blood was anywhere to be seen. He didn’t even have bruises. Friends of ours came by the hospital and ordered me to go home with them to rest for the night. My instinct was to stay with Punky but they wouldn’t hear of it. I did sleep well that night.

The next morning the hospital released Punky so George came to pick us up and we went home. There are no words to describe my relief. It put things in perspective for a long time and you can believe I was sure the door latched after that as well as giving myself more time to get to work. I cannot imagine the guilt and grief I would have suffered without a happy ending to the story.

We celebrated his first birthday on December 22nd and with Christmas three days later we had a lot to be thankful for………

Until tomorrow,

Essentially Esther