Living with Other Kids

All my childhood I remember having the best cat.  She was a beautiful, sweet tempered Calico, with the most beautiful markings.  Not only was she a great cat, but she was very smart too.  She always brought us gifts from the fields and sometimes left them in our shoes.  Sometimes it would be a lizard, but most of the time it was a dead mouse.  She also got around with every other cat in the neighborhood.  My mom would call her a little promiscuous cat.  It sure seemed like she was always pregnant or tending to little ones.  One of her litters included a few orange striped kittens.  They were very cute, as are all kittens.

At this time one of my "Aunts" and her daughter and kids, that must have been single at this time, was living with us.  I never did call this daughter my cousins.  She was much older than I was and had some bratty little kids, with ratty looking hair, and bugger noses.

One of these bratty little kids, probably 3 years old, found some of my moms sharp Gingher scissors, and decided to cut off one of the baby kitten's tails.  We came home from somewhere and found a bloody stump at the bottom of one of these kitten's tails.  I don't recall her getting in trouble or scolded.  She was too small to say much.  But I do remember not liking her for it.  This was a start of a bad living situation.  What kind of a child goes and cuts a tail of an animal off.  Poor kitten.  I don't recall if it lived or died, I just remembering how could this little brat do such a thing.

Living with kids from different home styles is not easy, and then adding in their own kids and a cat.  We had enough going on with my dad marrying two other ladies, and then them living with us, and then their own kids living with us, and then some of their gran kids too.  Busy household.

The Slap From the Sister Wife

I recall one Sunday drive to church very well.  My sisters and I were sitting on the ground in the far back of our huge van.  The back seat was in front of us, and on it sitting was two of the Sister Wives.  They both seemed high strung and easy to push their buttons, now that I am older I completely get it and can see why.  I can only handle a bunch of kids for a short while, and these Sister Wives got to be around us 24/7.  Lucky them.

So, imagine all us kids.  Let's say the youngest was 5 and the oldest sibling to my was probably 17 years old.  Not to mention their kids.  As you can imagine, these ladies were blessed to put up with all of us for so long.

Getting back to The Slap.  So, we are all in the huge van and in the far back us little kids were hot.  The air was stuffy and we wanted some air.  We did not have a window so I opened the side window by the sliding door.  After a few minutes wife #2 closes it.  I complain to my sisters that it is hot again, and send up my little sister to open the window.  Wife #2 tells us she needs it closed because it is messing up her hair, so lone behold it is closed again.  I am guessing I gave it 5 minutes before sending my baby sister to open the window for all of us.

Sweet innocent 5 year old goes and opens the window, and before she knows what happened she is back handed across the face.  Next thing you know my dad slams on the brakes, she flies against the front seat.  My dad orders wife #2 to get out of the van.

Sitting in the van, we could all hear my talking very loud, "Don't EVER hit my children again!"  He told her she could walk.  He got in the van and drove slowly with her walking behind him on the freeway with everyone to see, and us kids to watch quietly in shock.

She got back in, and the van ride was quiet the rest of the trip. I don't recall if the window was open or closed the rest of the trip, but I am sure we were too much in shock to care.  Life went on.

Typical Utah Family

I was raised in the traditional Utah family.  My dad served a mission for the Latter Day Saints church, also known as Mormons, then he met my mom at BYU, and later married in the Salt Lake temple.

My parents had 8 kids,  me being the 6th child.  We went to church every Sunday, said our prayers for every meal and at our bedside before going to bed.  I even recall praying as a family before every road trip, so that we would travel safely with no problems.  Praying comes with all religions, I am just stating that we did it a lot.

When I was still very small, I'm guessing 2nd grade, my parents found another church that they could not prove wrong, so they did what they believed was the right thing to do.  This church practiced and lived the laws of consecration, and polygamy.   This is where all the money you make and all your belongings go into the "pool" with everyone else's belongings.  Then spent as needed.  At least this is the way I understood it.  They also practiced plural marriage.  With all the scriptures my dad knew front and back, he could not find this church to be wrong.  So we all joined.

Our family had a big, new swing set at this time, and it went to live at someone else's home, because they needed it  more, apparently, and we did not need it as much as they did.  We then moved soon after to a city closer to where they wanted us to live.

Life changed for everyone in my family, as you can imagine.  I have so many memories that have made me who I am today.  I still say, "praise the Lord" in my head when something happens, such as the other day when carrying a six pack of soda in from the car, two slipped out and crashed to the ground...since there was no mess or pain involved, I instinctively said, "praise the Lord" with a sigh of relief.

I have so many interesting memories about growing up, and have decided to write my journey though it all.  I write these as memories, not looking for criticism of any kind.