Mrs. Hillbilly Mom Can't Complain

This has been one of my most thankful Thanksgivings ever. I have both my boys home, safe and sound, and Farmer H, cantankerous as he is, still enjoys good health, and is on the cusp of retirement. You know what THAT means! More together time for the two of us! Still. I am very thankful.

The #1 son allowed me to tell two tales from his childhood, at the feasting table, in earshot of his friend. I won't count the one about losing him as an infant, because that was precipitated by Farmer H speaking of losing him as a toddler.

Farmer H had taken #1 camping in the fifth-wheel camper that my mom and dad gave us. Don't you worry about my sister the ex-mayor's wife. She received CASH MONEY to keep things even steven, even though the amount was about twice what fifth-wheel campers such as that one were going for at the time. Some people are more even than others, I suppose. Anyhoo...Farmer H took that camper to a nearby state park. I chose not to go, because it was during the heat of late summer, and I the baby Pony to contend with. I did, however, drive up with lunch for them and sit in a lawn chair and sweat. Farmer H had awoken that morning to NO #1 SON. He searched that camper high and low, with no success. Just as the panic was starting to intensify, the calling-911-panic, he crawled across the bed and looked again down beside the wall. Under a stuffed dinosaur (which I think was a talking Barney), he found #1 asleep in that crevice.

That reminded me of Baby #1 Son, a young infant (as opposed to a long-in-the-tooth infant) who slept in the marital bed because my $17,000 house in town was on the drafty side. He had a beautiful red metal crib and Crayola curtains and wall-hangings, but I was reluctant to leave him in his bedroom in the house proper. We had added a master bedroom on the other side of the kitchen, and as you might imagine, I did not want to be too far away from my newborn. He was born in December, you know, which is a cold time of year. Even in our room, I did not want to leave him in that bassinet thingy next to the bed. We tucked him in between us, he was there for feedings, and all was right with the world.

Until the morning we woke up and couldn't find him. Yeah. Talk about panic. I knew he didn't walk away. I made Farmer H get up and I searched all under where he'd been. I stripped the covers off the bed. I looked under the bed. That baby was gone! Gone, baby, gone! We looked at each other across the bed, then resumed our search with renewed frenzy. It was Farmer H who found him. Wedged between the top end of the mattress and the wall. Lying on part of the headboard frame that was out of sight behind the mattress. Farmer H fished him out, and we rejoiced. Baby #1 just looked at us quizzically. He's always been a deep thinker, that one.

The two stories I told at the Thanksgiving table today involved pumpkin pie, and a dangerous liaison at the DMV. I'm pretty sure I've told both those stories on my blogs before. But if it piques your interest, let me know and I'll repeat one or both. It's not like I have a lot of fresh material lately. The story I was NOT allowed to tell was about picking #1 up from daycare, and his newfound adult skill that was inappropriate for a four-year-old. Sorry. Can't spill the beans on that one. Even though I might have at some point over the past 11 years that I've been blogging.

Yes, I am very thankful to have my boys home again. Even for a day. Even though The Pony, Farmer H, and I went to town in T-Hoe, with Farmer H driving, and The Pony played an old trick on me.

There I was, riding along like a good wife, swaying to Farmer H's sweaving, only commenting once on those thumping noises when we got T-Hoe's tires off the side of the road on the wake-up strips...when I felt something on my shoulder.

"For old times," said The Pony. As he put his damp-socked, shoeless sole on my shoulder, so I could feel the moist heat of his foot (my most-abhorred body part) on my deltoids.

Yeah. Seems like old times. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is very, very thankful today.