I was an only child for three year and ten months. My parents happily spoiled me rotten and I got away with everything.
THEN, my mother accidentally got pregnant. Well, ish.
Let me explain. My mother has three sisters. Total that is four sisters if you include her. They are all within a year from one another except for the youngest who my Oma told me "Was an accident when Opa and I were watching Alfie." Aside from this being way too much information, it explains why they're all so close. They all talk on the phone at least once a day and moved out to California together and got married around the same time and started having babies at around the same time. Today there are 8 of us spawned from these four mothers, two kids per mom. It wasn't always this way however. Originally, two of my aunts had two kids and my mother and another aunt each had one daughter. It was perfect, blissful, amazing.
Then my Aunt Karolyn got pregnant again. My mom, being super jealous and not wanting to be left out when all of her sisters had two children, stopped using birth control. She forgot to tell my father of this grand plan to continue propagating the earth.
She got pregnant almost immediately. And that's where Bronwyn came from: jealousy. My life was ruined. Things would never be the same again. Everything changed.
For instance, I didn't have a bed time before Bronwyn was born. I just conked out when ever the fuck I felt like it. This led to my ability to sleep on anything when I get truly exhausted.
The lack of a bed time was probably due to my parents being recovering hippies at this point in their lives. They were finishing up the "Drugs are fun!" part of their lives and trying to be mature adults with a toddler to practice on.
When there was for some reason, a need for my parents to put me down to sleep (like if they had friends over and wanted to get drunk, or if a babysitter was coming so they could go over to a friends house and get drunk) it rarely went well. I would scream and cry and beg to be an adult with them.
Bronwyn and I shared a room after she was born. This means all my toys were tossed out to make room for the vast amount of baby stuff. Let me add new baby stuff. No Good Will crap for Bonny. We lived in Lafayette at this point, not Berkeley where I lived as a newborn. My parents hippie ways had been trimmed away. They were responsible suburban parents now. It also meant I had a bed time. I did not like this.
I forced my parents to lay next to me until I fell asleep. They were also required to sing my lullaby, and other lullabies until I slept. If they fell asleep in my bed with me (which I infinitely preferred to them leaving me), they were not allowed to snore (which meant they couldn't actually fall asleep).
Inevitably after an hour or two they gave up and told me to lie in the dark and count sheep. They ignored the fact that I was 4 and couldn't count over 10.
This backfired on them however. As once they left the room and I counted to ten, I would sit up and scream loudly, "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! I'm looooooooooooonelllllllllllllllly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" If this didn't a) get them to return or b) wake up Bonny I resorted to plan B. This was more treacherous, however, because I had to get out of my bed.
Getting out of bed involved leaping from the edge of the bed at least four feet away. This distance was necessary because the witch that lived under my bed could only reach out 3.5 feet from the edge. This is because that's how long her arms were. (Yes I did have a very vivid imagination.)
If I did manage to will myself out of bed and land four feet away and not break my arm, I was good. Now I had two options. I could poke Bronwyn until she cried, bringing my parents into the room immediately, but this involved sharing Bonny with my parents something I tried to avoid. The second choice was to sneak out of my room silently and crawl down the long dark and foreboding hallway to my parents room. I usually picked the latter choice unless Bronwyn was being particularly annoying that day and I was feeling especially malicious.
If I made it all the way down to my parents room without falling asleep during the sometimes half-hour long silent-sneaky-crawl-down-the-hall I had to wait until my parents turned off the lights and went to bed. Their room was still carpeted at this point in time so this was usually a fairly comfortable time for me. I would curl up where they couldn't see me in front of the blanket chest that sat at the base of their bed, and think happy four-year-old thoughts.
Several times I fell asleep here only to be found the next morning when my parents woke up. We lived in California so sleeping on the carpet, even in the dead of winter, wasn't a huge deal. Some times they found me before they turned off the lights and put me back into bed. This meant my plan had failed and I returned to screaming "DADDY!!!!! I'M LONELY!!!!!!!!!" only shriller and more annoyingly.
On the rare occasions I stayed awake long enough for them to turn the lights off and did not get caught, I WON!! I got to crawl in between them and sleep there, with the adults, till morning. I felt accomplished. I ruined my parents sex life. What?
THEN, my mother accidentally got pregnant. Well, ish.
Let me explain. My mother has three sisters. Total that is four sisters if you include her. They are all within a year from one another except for the youngest who my Oma told me "Was an accident when Opa and I were watching Alfie." Aside from this being way too much information, it explains why they're all so close. They all talk on the phone at least once a day and moved out to California together and got married around the same time and started having babies at around the same time. Today there are 8 of us spawned from these four mothers, two kids per mom. It wasn't always this way however. Originally, two of my aunts had two kids and my mother and another aunt each had one daughter. It was perfect, blissful, amazing.
Then my Aunt Karolyn got pregnant again. My mom, being super jealous and not wanting to be left out when all of her sisters had two children, stopped using birth control. She forgot to tell my father of this grand plan to continue propagating the earth.
She got pregnant almost immediately. And that's where Bronwyn came from: jealousy. My life was ruined. Things would never be the same again. Everything changed.
For instance, I didn't have a bed time before Bronwyn was born. I just conked out when ever the fuck I felt like it. This led to my ability to sleep on anything when I get truly exhausted.
 |
| Here I am sleeping starting at the top left and going clockwise: On a chair during a party with my cousin's dog, at someone's house, on a bed in the middle of the afternoon as my father lays beside me talking to my mom and sister in our hotel room, on my aunt's couch, at the beach with my friend Claudia, at a tournament using my mask as a pillow. |
The lack of a bed time was probably due to my parents being recovering hippies at this point in their lives. They were finishing up the "Drugs are fun!" part of their lives and trying to be mature adults with a toddler to practice on.
When there was for some reason, a need for my parents to put me down to sleep (like if they had friends over and wanted to get drunk, or if a babysitter was coming so they could go over to a friends house and get drunk) it rarely went well. I would scream and cry and beg to be an adult with them.
Bronwyn and I shared a room after she was born. This means all my toys were tossed out to make room for the vast amount of baby stuff. Let me add new baby stuff. No Good Will crap for Bonny. We lived in Lafayette at this point, not Berkeley where I lived as a newborn. My parents hippie ways had been trimmed away. They were responsible suburban parents now. It also meant I had a bed time. I did not like this.
I forced my parents to lay next to me until I fell asleep. They were also required to sing my lullaby, and other lullabies until I slept. If they fell asleep in my bed with me (which I infinitely preferred to them leaving me), they were not allowed to snore (which meant they couldn't actually fall asleep).
Inevitably after an hour or two they gave up and told me to lie in the dark and count sheep. They ignored the fact that I was 4 and couldn't count over 10.
This backfired on them however. As once they left the room and I counted to ten, I would sit up and scream loudly, "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! I'm looooooooooooonelllllllllllllllly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" If this didn't a) get them to return or b) wake up Bonny I resorted to plan B. This was more treacherous, however, because I had to get out of my bed.
Getting out of bed involved leaping from the edge of the bed at least four feet away. This distance was necessary because the witch that lived under my bed could only reach out 3.5 feet from the edge. This is because that's how long her arms were. (Yes I did have a very vivid imagination.)
If I did manage to will myself out of bed and land four feet away and not break my arm, I was good. Now I had two options. I could poke Bronwyn until she cried, bringing my parents into the room immediately, but this involved sharing Bonny with my parents something I tried to avoid. The second choice was to sneak out of my room silently and crawl down the long dark and foreboding hallway to my parents room. I usually picked the latter choice unless Bronwyn was being particularly annoying that day and I was feeling especially malicious.
If I made it all the way down to my parents room without falling asleep during the sometimes half-hour long silent-sneaky-crawl-down-the-hall I had to wait until my parents turned off the lights and went to bed. Their room was still carpeted at this point in time so this was usually a fairly comfortable time for me. I would curl up where they couldn't see me in front of the blanket chest that sat at the base of their bed, and think happy four-year-old thoughts.
Several times I fell asleep here only to be found the next morning when my parents woke up. We lived in California so sleeping on the carpet, even in the dead of winter, wasn't a huge deal. Some times they found me before they turned off the lights and put me back into bed. This meant my plan had failed and I returned to screaming "DADDY!!!!! I'M LONELY!!!!!!!!!" only shriller and more annoyingly.
On the rare occasions I stayed awake long enough for them to turn the lights off and did not get caught, I WON!! I got to crawl in between them and sleep there, with the adults, till morning. I felt accomplished. I ruined my parents sex life. What?
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