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I had the opportunity to meet Ultra Bob last evening and although I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t greet us at the train station wearing underpants on his head, he was quite charming.
We’ll fast forward ten years for Embarrassing Kristen Story #2.
Now we lived in Valley of Lakes, a wooded ‘paradise’ in NE Pennsylvania. Developed as a vacation wonderland, this 300 acre plot had two man made lakes, a riding stable, swimming pool and tennis courts. It also had a series of scheming, crooked developers who duped many local contractors and pissed off most Valley of Lakes residents. Lack of payment plagued the contractors and lack of maintenance and services annoyed the residents. There were times when the homeowners were forced to plow snow and repair the water system.
Ah, but Phil and I thought it was a glorious spot to live. The girls thought we were trying to bore them to death.
For the first year there was no TV…horrors! There were no shops, no fast food restaurants and no pizza delivery. But there were tadpoles, salamanders, evil snakes and fossil rocks to examine and a whole lot of time to imagine. We would have resourceful children.
Kristen, now 11, had become pretty adept at amusing herself. If all else failed, there was always her little sister to torment. The words “I’m bored” weren’t well tolerated in our household. My usual reply to a lament of “I’m bored” was, “Why don’t you clean your room”.
On this particular day I didn’t wait for the “I’m bored “prompt to suggest that rooms be cleaned. I’d been asking nicely for several days and it was time to be firm. I looked Kris straight in the eye and in my best firm Mother voice told her to go upstairs and do a number on her room.
She complained but knew I was serious this time and headed for her room. I heard activity above me and when she came down to the kitchen about 30 minutes later I asked if she’d finished with her room. She told me to go to her room and see.
When I reached the top of the stairs, Kristen was right behind me waiting to show me the job that she’d done and there it was. On her door in yellow construction paper, neatly cut out was the number seven.
Living among the salamanders had made her quite resourceful.
There are many instances of Tod’s crashing into things in his early years. I remember him dashing down the stairs and tumbling the last half of the way many times. And many bicycle crashes. His sister Maureen’s reminder of a particular incident, I copy and paste from her email and allow her statement to tell the story. Any details you like can be conjured up in your imagination: ”...don’t forget about Tod yelling “Cowabunga” at the top of the steps in Glen Ellyn and jumping down to the bottom and crashing into the table…”
Tod’s loving mom,
Jean McQuillin
This memory dates back to 1974, when Tod was about 5 years old. One night, soon after we had moved into a new house, I was awakened by a soft sort of tinklling sound next to the bed. Imagine my surprise and even alarm when I opened my eyes and realized that the noise was my son, who had sleepwalked into the bedroom and was tinkling on the telephone on my night stand! The phone never worked again and it was a bit tricky to explain the problem to the phone company, who in those days owned the phone. Tod was oblivious to the whole incident and has a memory of it only by the retelling. Good thing I am here to remind him!
Tod’s helpful mom,
Jean McQUillin
Tod was quite a precocious child who showed an aptitude for computers the first time he got his hands on a device with a keyboard and a screen. I believe he was about 11 years old and the device was a hand-held computer of some sort, brought home from work by his dad. From that time on, we made every effort to present Tod with opportunities to explore this new and keen interest. Of course we bought him a TRS-80 which was well-used at the expense of most other activity, including homework.
One summer we sent him away to computer camp at a university campus. We got just one correspondence from him: a post card that stated, simply, “Dear Mom & Dad, Maureen (the little sister) and Sassy(the cockatiel), Having a great time. Today I learned how to hack into other people’s computers. Love, Tod” Tod has always managed to learn lessons not intended by his teachers.
And so it continues to this day…
Tod’s loving mom,
Jean McQuillin
Although I am sure my thinking abilities left me on the flight to Tokyo (somewhere over Alaska, I think), I don’t want to miss the golden opportunity offered to me by Ultra Bob to tell embarrassing stories about Kristen. This first entry may not be Kristen’s most embarrassing moment but it is a telling one.
Kristen was about a year old when we moved to an old stone and stucco house in Suffern, New York. We’d lived in a very small apartment and the added space of this new house was a luxury. The living room was cavernous. Our few pieces of furniture were lost in the large rectangle so we bought two six foot square red carpets and put them at either end. The furniture now had something to sit around and we thought it was just about perfect.
The house also had a large backyard. The yard provided the arena for the beginning of this story. When the weather warmed in the spring, Kristen and I played in the yard every afternoon after her nap until I had to go in to fix dinner (think 1967 and June Cleaver here). For the first couple of weeks, Kristen obediently toddled in at my side. One day, however, she refused to come in and I was forced to tuck her under my arm and haul her, kicking and screaming, into the house. When we got to the kitchen I put her down and still screaming she ran into the living room and began to beat her forehead on the red rugs. She worked her way around the first one and moved on to the next. She seemed determined and was certainly methodical. I was horrified. She could get hurt. I tried to reason with her and when that didn’t work I told her that when she was finished with her tantrum, she could come into the kitchen for a cookie.
I fretted in the kitchen, worried that I’d done the wrong thing but in a few minutes she appeared with a pink forehead and puffy face ready for that cookie. For the next week she repeated her rug performance daily but the length and fervor seemed to be diminishing. I even discussed the event with our pediatrician. He assured me that I was doing the right thing.
She stopped her daily rug trick in a few more days. So, if you’ve ever thought that Kristen has a hard head, I can tell you for a fact that she does.
I found out early.
OK, let’s try to cheer up, the experiment that was the U.S. of A. seems to have failed, but there will be other beacons of freedom. I mean after all,. it was called “The American dream. How did we not see it coming?
It is time now to focus on the wonderful, those things that keep us from remembering that everything we knew is wrong. It is time to focus on Momblogging. Yes here at the first annual momblogging conference our guest bloggers are UltraFran, mother of kuri and UltraJean, mother of Tod.
You may be aware that the other author on this site is my own dear UltraMommy. Originally the site was me and my little brother Johnny, but when Johnny flaked out on me UltraMom was there to step in and start writing … start writing mortifying stories from my childhood to be more precise. She seems to have stopped writing of late, but that is neither here nor there. To give you an idea, here is one of the early posts from UltraBob that has been very popular.
Anyway, when those stories saw the light of day, a few friends of mine had a fair amount of laughter at my expense. That’s fine, I’m a generous guy, but I think it is only fair that they pay me back, don’t you? I have been telling them that I would get in touch with their parents and get them to give me some juicy tidbits to share with the world, and when I heard about The Okaasantachi Tour I knew the time had come. I got in touch with Jean and Fran through a rather unsatisfyingly cooperative Kuri, and asked if they would like to embarrass their children. yes they said, they’d be delighted. So I’m happy to introduce guest bloggers UltraFran and UltraJean (listed in alphabetical order). Let the comments flow like wine, they are what makes writing the stuff worthwhile.
P.S. Please forgive the rather poorly done guest blogger design. I did it in a bit of a rush. I hope to get the chance to go back and fix it up soon, but I kind of doubt that I will.
I think there may be a number of people looking for this today: How to Become a Canadian Citizen.
UPDATE: Electing to Leave
Thanks Jim for the link.
