1951 JanuaryThese are the Days!

These are the days 1 must record, time or no time. These are the days I sometimes wonder if  will ever live through, and at the same time I know I will be lonesome for, once they are over. Like today, when I have gone to do the ironing three times, and have come away three times without doing it. The first interruption was the baby, Jimmy, who woke before expected. The second was a man selling “Wear-ever” pots and pans. The third was Lenore and Michelle for a cup of tea and a cigarette.

   These are the days when there are three preschoolers underfoot. Mary Jane aged four and a half; Suzanne, just past three, and James Patrick, eight months. Right now I am sitting at the dining-room table, and the two girls with their friend, Kay Turnbull, are making Plasticine worms on the Babee­Tenda, on the rug, and on the window sill. I sat down here to continue a story that I have been trying for months to write. I got the first draft finished in the joyful peace and quiet of a hospital room, four months ago when I had my tonsils out and a D&C at the same time. In the four months since then I have written the first page of the second draft. (Some people, fools that they are mothers they definitely cannot be-- do not like hospitals. I am different. I luxuriate in the peace, in the service, in the food-- no matter how good or bad it may be. I stay the old fashioned eight to ten days after a baby, and love every minute of it.

   These are the days of the 6 a.m. feeding, and the whooping-cough shots, of dancing class on Mondays, and a tub of washing every night after the children are in bed. These are the days when we have named one of the upstairs rooms: The Ironing Room. Never ending is the ironing. Puffed sleeves and frilly dresses- how I hate them in the raw, and love them on the girls.

   These are the days when Christmas comes for one day and the bills last for three months. When an evening dress—(Who ever said, "Oh, it is just a little number I ran up myself!" What a liar!) When an evening dress means three weeks of blood, sweat, tears, and no desserts! When, after the sewing machine is silenced, my eldest sums up the whole situation, and, I am sure, expresses the sentiments of the whole family by sighing mightily and saying: "Mommie, please don't ever make another dress!"

 These are the days when the doctor’s pronouncement on Jimmy: "You should have twelve when you can have them like that!" makes the lack of sleep, the chapped hands and the greying hair seem well worthwhile.    These are the days that will all too soon be far away and long ago. But right now I must cut the lump of Plasticine out of the baby's hair. Of course none of the girls has the slightest idea of how it got there.