This is the story of how I, alone, am responsible for the color of my mother’s hair.
When I was in 6th or 7th grade I used to do a lot of babysitting for a family with two kids. A boy, age four and a girl, age two.
I loved those little kids and we always had a good time when I was keeping them.
I’m not sure if things have changed, but back in my day if you were in the 6th or 7th grade you were definitely available for babysitting because there was nothing else to do.
Anyway, the couple had another baby girl so a newborn was added to the mix.
When I’ve told this story before most people say that they can’t imagine leaving a newborn with an 11 or 12 year old. But in the 1970s young couples would leave their kids with a trained bear if it meant they could get to the honky tonk or the disco.
The newborn was asleep when I got there that night. The parents told me that she would take a bottle at 8:30 p.m. and then probably go back to sleep. I was shown how to prepare the bottles. Easy peasy. No big deal.
So by the time I got the older kids into their beds it was 8:30 p.m.
I went to the infant’s room and took her out of the crib being very careful to hold her head and neck as I had been instructed.
I got the bottle ready while holding her and then we sat down on the couch.
I pressed the nipple to her lips. Nothing happened.
Nothing happened.
I tried again and nothing happened. Again and again and
Again and again and again. She would not take the bottle and I was told she would take it at 8:30 p.m.
What’s the only logical explanation my 11 or 12-year-old brain could come up with?
This baby is dead.
So I called Mom and told her the baby was dead and she needed to come over right away.
Our house was only a few blocks down Brazos Street, and I swear I heard screeching tires in the circular drive in less than five seconds.
She ran in and I pointed to the dead baby who I had left on the couch. Being dead she had not made a sound even when I was frantically screaming for my mommy on the phone.
She swooped up the dead baby and checked her out all over.
“Kyle William! This baby is asleep!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. She was shaking, and at that exact moment her hair started turning white.
I made her stay with me for the rest of the night.
I really don’t remember much after that. I was just glad the dead baby wasn’t dead after all. But I did realize how much I had scared Mom.
The parents got a good laugh out of that when they returned. Mom, however, did not think it was funny at the time, but she laughs about it now.
The next time they called me to babysit, they hired someone else to babysit the newborn and all I had to do was take care of the two older ones. How nice is that?
To this day I think newborns are the scariest things on the planet. And y’all know how I feel about snakes.
When my great nephew Reece was born 10 years ago I ended up having to babysit him one afternoon. He was sleeping on his stomach on a blanket on the floor. I didn’t want to wake him up but I did go get a mirror and every so often I held it up to his face to make sure he was breathing.
So in case you’ve ever wondered why Mom’s hair is white, it’s because she earned every single one of them that night.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.