Tag: mommy’s piggy tales

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Mommy’s Piggy Tales: Preschool and Kindergarten

Janna of Mommy’s Piggy Tales began a project to share our youth with our children. Every Thursday, I will tell a story about my childhood as if I were telling it to my children. At the end of this project, I’ll have a collection of stories about my childhood for my children to keep, and hopefully treasure.

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When I was little, I spent the whole summer with bare feet. So it is no surprise to me that I remember having bare feet when we were moving from Nebraska to Illinois.

I was three years old, and we were spending the night in a hotel. My grandparents, your great-grandma and grandpa, were helping us move, and Grandpa Jim was driving the moving truck. We got to the hotel first, and as we saw Grandpa Jim pulling the truck into the parking lot, I ran down the sidewalk waving to him. Great-Grandpa was just behind me, and he saw something I didn’t see — a big ol’ bumblebee, flying down from the roof of the hotel straight for my big toe! He ran up behind me, grabbed me under the arms, (I remember seeing his brown shoes) and yanked me away from that bee!

That bee had a one-track mind, and he stung my big toe anyway! It hurt like the dickens! Grandma Loreeta immediately put some ice in a bowl, and we soaked my toe in ice water. That made my toe feel a lot better!

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When I was little, there wasn’t preschool in the town I lived in. I didn’t go to school until I was five years old, and then I went to Kindergarten.

We lived in a very small town. The town has a Lutheran church, where Grandpa Jim was the pastor, and the church has a school, which is where I went to school. Everybody knew everyone else in our town. I knew a lot of the teachers already, especially since they went to church with us and were friends of Grandpa and Grandma.

One day, I decided to bring my brand-new jump rope to school. It was raining that day, so we had recess in the gym. Recess included everyone, not just the kindergartners! I soon abandoned my jump rope, and some other kids started playing with it. The sixth grade teacher saw that these kids were misbehaving with MY jump rope, and so he took it away from them. I saw this, ran over to the sixth grade teacher, and grabbed my jump rope away from him! I told him it was MY JUMP ROPE, and my mommy told me not to lose it!

Grandma Loreeta loved telling me this story, about the time her little kindergartner stood up to the sixth-grade teacher!

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Mommy’s Piggy Tales: The Story of My Birth

Storytelling works its way into every family, whether you realize it or not! It’s sitting around the dinner table and asking each other, “How was your day?” It’s remembering holidays and vacations together while you page through a photo album; it’s telling an embarrassing story that you are now able to laugh about. Over Memorial Day weekend, I was stung by a wasp, and my youngest daughter Emmy was there. She asks me over and over again, “Tell me when you got stinged by a wasp!” Babies love to hear their mothers’ voices; storytelling begins before they are even born. When I was pregnant with Lily, I talked to her constantly; while I was pregnant with Emmy, she heard me talking to Lily constantly!

Janna of Mommy’s Piggy Tales began a project to share our youth with our children. Every Thursday, I will tell a story about my childhood as if I were sharing it with my children. At the end of this project, I’ll have a collection of stories about my childhood for my children to keep, and hopefully treasure.

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It was the middle of the night, in the middle of winter, in the middle of the country. The nearest hospital was 40 miles away, and my parents, your Grandpa Jim and Grandma Loreeta, had to drive across the border — the border between Nebraska and Iowa. It was a very snowy night, but Grandma and Grandpa arrived safely — and on time — at the hospital. Back then, the father of the baby was not allowed to be present during the birth, so Grandpa had to wait in the waiting room. Grandma delivered me so fast that the doctor told her, “What do you think you’re doing? Having a baby?” I was born on Sunday, February 2, at 3:39 a.m.

Grandma asked, “Is it really a girl?” when I was born. And when Grandpa saw me, he was speechless.

Not only is February 2nd Groundhog’s Day, but I was also the first baby born in Sioux City during National Dental Health Week. Grandma was presented with a silver baby toothbrush by the president of the local Dental Auxiliary. There was a even a photo of the presentation and an short article in the local paper about my birth.

When I was born, Grandpa was the pastor at a small church in rural Nebraska. Grandma and Grandpa wanted to give me a special name, and so they gave me a first name that meant I was a follower of Christ. My middle name is my mom’s middle name, and my grandma’s middle name, and my great-grandma’s first name. And that is how Grandma and Grandpa named me: Christa Marie.

Grandma bringing Mommy home from the hospital

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(not my real name…mostly! Someday I’ll tell you about how I came up with my blog name, although now you may be able to guess 😉