Pregnant for YEARS!

Today, Courtney changed her Facebook status to "I feel like I've been pregnant for YEARS. Twins are serious business".  

Courtney's status change immediately caused me to flash back to my childhood...... And since Courtney is related to all the people in this story, I dedicate this to her.  By the way, Courtney, I wish you'd have known your great-great grandpa Tyson.  He was an amazing man.


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I was the oldest child of two people who were such polar opposites that I'm still not sure how they ever got together.  My mom never met a stranger.  She had an incredible sense of humor.  She was often the life of the party and people gravitated to her.  My father, especially when he was younger, was uber-serious and didn't much like being around people, and I recall that at this stage of his life (before taking the Dale Carnegie course and becoming a confident public speaker), he was still somewhat socially awkward.  He seldom smiled, never laughed, and preferred to have no one notice him.  One thing's for sure.... he had the wrong wife and daughter, because he hated being the center of attention.

At that time, we lived in a smallish frame house in a suburb of Oklahoma City.  We were not far from Tinker Air Force Base, where my dad was stationed.  I was three, and my mom was pregnant.  And by pregnant, I mean PREGNANT!  From the beginning, I told everyone who would listen "My momma's gonna have two babies, one for me and one for her!"  At this point, the Air Force doctor had not figured out that there were twins...  so everyone just ignored my constant insistence that there were two babies.   I don't know HOW they didn't know.... she was huge from the fourth month on.  She eventually became the most pregnant person any person in our family has ever seen.  Most people don't remember much from when they are three or four, but I clearly remember how huge my Mom was when she was carrying the twins.  I generally describe it as "pregnant from here to West Texas".  Most folks know that generally twins are born early and small... but not my brothers!  They ended up inducing labor on her due date - and she had two BIG babies.  (The genius Air Force doctor delivered the first one, then announced "I think there's at least one more in there...."  Mom later said she freaked out wondering what "at least" meant.)


One afternoon in her second trimester, this very pregnant woman was waddling... er....walking down the hallway from the living room to the bedrooms.  She was being followed by my dad, and I was following along behind the two of them.  Spotting something on the floor, mom bent over to pick it up.  When she did, she ripped the seat out of her pants, loudly and dramatically.  Always a bit of a clown, she turned around, swatted at my father playfully and said, "Don't you dare try to rip my pants off!"  And nothing else was said.


A couple more months passed and we had a family get together with my paternal grandmother's family.  Sitting in the seat of honor, "holding court" when we walked in was my Great-Grandpa Tyson.  I remember him being small in stature, but with a gigantic personality, a somewhat booming voice and a great sense of humor.  As we entered the room, he saw how huge my mom had become and he exclaimed, "Earlene!  What on earth has happened to you!?!?"

As the family all started to chuckle, I piped up and said, "Well, my daddy ripped the pants right off of her!" 

Fifty years later, my father still hasn't forgiven me for that one.  ;-)