The months I got to spend with our new babies were some of the best of my life. I would get up with Jack, make his breakfast and see him off to work. By then the babies would be awake and hungry, so I would warm up the bottles, change the babies into new diapers and fresh clothes, and feed them. Jack had found bottle holders that we braced with books and the babies would eat, and after burping and changing their bottoms again, they'd drift off to sleep and I could grab a bite to eat and make up the formula 9 bottles at a time. I loved my babies so much, but with 2 to change and feed, new formula to make up, bottles to steralize, and baby clothes to wash out by hand, I didn't know to take the time to sit down and hold each one and feed them, and coo and fuss over them. I was so busy, and after my parents trying to steal them, I had no help. Jack helped in the evenings because I would be so tired. I would bathe one, and he would dry and dress him while I bathed the other one. We fed them together in the evening's and it wasn't long until I put them on cereal. They loved it, especially Brian. He would grab at the spoon and try to feed himself. They were about 6 weeks old at the time.
We had Thanksgiving with Jack's Mom and Grandma because my parents had done the unforgivable, and I wasn't about to go there and see them. They had cut any ties I might have felt we still had and staying away from them was not difficult. I had lots of love to fill my life and the twins drew attention wherever we went. Even the doctor had said he'd take them off my hands after the first year! Joking, of course. Jack and I didn't get a tree for our first Christmas together. We hung our Christmas cards on a fake tree I had bought for my apartment. So, with our first Christmas with the boys, we took them with us to the store and bought a small artificial tree that we set up in the corner of the living room. We decorated with lights of course, and some globes we bought, plus some of Jack's Great Grandmother's globes. It was beautiful to us, even if it was little. We kept it and used it for years.
We had some friends that worked at the Hobby Nut where we bought the items we needed to make the cake topper, and Jack also played war games on the weekends at the store. One of the girls that worked there, made us a macrame plant hanger using blue and white and little teddy bears. We went to see them and took the twins. We invited one of our friends, who owned the shop, for dinner one evening. Jack had been at work, and I had cleaned the living room and kitchen and made a delicious dinner. I had candles lit and music playing and the babies were asleep in the bassinet Mom had bought. Because of what they did to us, we didn't see them that Christmas. They missed a lot because of their hateful actions towards us. But, back to the story, our friend told Jack that evening, "You have it all!" The tree was turned on with the lights softly glowing over the babies sleeping peacefully, and even though we didn't have the biggest, or best house, filled with beautiful belongings, we had something that money can't buy...love.
That Christmas we went to see Kay and Helen, and Helen Marie, Jacks Mom, Grandma, and younger Sister. They bought me some pants, a blouse, and a new purse and wallet for pictures of the babies. They got Jack some things, and I don't remember what they bought for the boys.
We were tight on money, but I think we were able to get them some gifts. I think one of them was a TV lamp for Jack's Mom. Probably slippers or something like that for Grandma Helen. With Helen Marie I just don't remember, although we bought her a lot on her birthday which was New Years Eve.
Eventually, I had to return to work, so we had to find a babysitter who would take 2 newborns. There was a man at work who said his wife could watch them. Their kids were grown, and she watched other kids as well. So we made arrangements with them to watch the boys. I didn't want to leave them, but I knew we would need the money, and I had worked since I was 19. So it felt normal to be back at work and I knew the boys were safe with Mrs. Okel. The pace was hectic, but with the love I was receiving from Jack and the boys, I got stronger and more able to do whatever I needed to do for our family. Jack would make the store runs and come home with huge sacks of baby-food, plastic pants, bibs, formula, new bottles, and many of the things we needed for the boys. Jack and I pretty much existed on TV Dinners as we had always done, and a lot of times we bought lunch off the lunch wagon when it came around.
Time flew by, and it had been 3 months that my folks hadn't seen the babies. I was still angry and hurt, but I had what I needed and I wasn't about to jeopardize my family by associating with people who would do such a thing to their own daughter. One day, the phone rang and Herb answered the phone and passed it to me. It was my Dad. He asked me to please bring the babies by so Mom could see them, before she had a heart attack. They always were melodramatic. He was a fine one to tell me about stress. When I needed him, he didn't have the time of day for me. He asked, "What about me, what about my life?" when my first psychiatrist called him. He left me with all his responsibilities and could't have cared less about my Mom's heart. We talked for a bit and I told him I would have to think about it long and hard before I made a decision. I told Jack about it that evening on our way home. He told me it was up to me. I thought about God and what He would want me to do. I decided I'd try to forgive them, which was asking a lot, and the next Saturday we went to Chula Vista to see them. The boys were pretty hefty by then. The whole family came out to the car to take the boys. I knew they didn't care about seeing me or Jack. They wanted to see the twins. They took them inside where they had been having breakfast. The boys sat with them at the table and helped them finish their breakfast. Conversation was really difficult. I had had a run in with post partum depression, and the new doctor I saw put me on Lithium. I was doing better, but still on medication. They couldn't have cared less. They only had eyes for the babies.
Years would pass before anyone even made an attempt at telling me they were sorry. My Mom had a major heart attack when the boys were 4 and 1/2 years old. Our little girl was barely 3 and doesn't remember a thing about them, except that she was never included at their house. They were almost nurotic in their love for the boys. They couldn't see that they had a sweet, loving little grand daughter. But on her death bed, as I stood by her in the emergency room of Bay General looking at the blood on her hand where they had put in a needle and tube, she opened her eyes and looked at me and she said "Bonnie, I'm sorry." Those were the last words she ever spoke to me. I vowed then and there, that I would strive to never have to say that to anyone on my death bed. Especially to one of my own family members. It was inevitable that she'd die young. She had inherited heart disease from her Father's side of the family, and she smoked. She had already had to have the arteries from her heart to her legs replaced because she had hardening of the arteries from smoking. She refused to try to change her eating habits, saying "If you can't even have what you want to eat, why try!" She apparently could find no reason to make the effort. Even though she had the grandkids, it wasn't enough.
Through the years that preceeded her death, we had made an effort to be civil to them whether they deserved it or not. At one point, they decided that we needed a better car for the babies, and my Mom and Brother decided to put sugar in the gas tank of our little fiat and it ruined the car. We were forced to buy a new car, when we had little enough money as it was. It's just incredible the things they did to us. They showed no care or consideration for us in the least. But through it all, Jack and I got closer and closer and stronger and stronger. With us, it was back to back aginst the world.
Alex developed asthma in the house we lived in. The house was cold and damp and mold was starting to grow on the inside of the walls. I talked to a friend of mine at work one day, and she said she and her husband would loan us the money to put down on an apartment we found out in Casa de Oro where it was warmer and dryer, and we could pay them back when we got our taxes. We signed a note from them, which is what her husband asked for. He was an accountant, and took precautions as he didn't really know us. She was such a good friend. We both worked for the IRS, and she had trained me. The day we decided to move, she watched the 3 kids for us, and Jack and I made trip after trip from North Park to Spring Valley. When we had everything in the house, we went to get the kids. She had bathed all 3 of them, and her husband had gone to KFC to get dinner. She had a little boy who was younger than our boys, but was twice their size. She thought he was a handful until she watched our kids. It wasn't that our kids were bad, but what one of them didn't think of to do, the other one did. They were just inquisitive and wanted to know how everything worked. Poor Diane must have been exhausted after a day with 4 kids. But they were good people, and we paid them back when our tax return came in. At work, one of the revenue officers that was in my group, said he had a bed he wanted to replace and asked if anyone needed one. We did, so one weekend we went and picked up a queen size mattress and box springs. We also had replaced our little vinyl orange couch on the black frames with a large, gold sofa. The kids loved the new sofa, and Sidra learned to walk by pulling herself up on the sofa and taking a hesitant step toward me one morning while I was working in the kitchen. I had stopped doing whatever I was doing, and had just turned around when she took her first step. The boys were at the baby-sitters house when she did this or she would have never made it. They would run by her and the wind would knock her over on her bottom. Jack even did a cartoon of poor little Sidra trying to walk as the two boys would dart by her and down she'd go. But they loved their sister. They were just very active and into mischief a lot of the time. Once they took the carbon ribbon off our old typewriter and tied each other up in it, and that was when they were still in walkers! Brian had at one point, rolled over to a plant by the TV and filled his tray full of dirt, and his mouth too! I was doing something in another room and I heard one of them gagging. I ran to see what it was, and Jack was laughing his butt off. Brian eventually spit most of it out and we tried to rinse his mouth out. Whenever they were really quiet, it paid off to go and see what they were up to. Once, they closed the doors to their bedroom, and took powder bottle and squeezed it till all the powder was in the air around them. I don't know how they didn't suffocate themselves! But we loved them and had lots of fun taking them out shopping and for drives to get them to go to sleep. Because they were born early, and I guess because they were twins, their nervous systems wern't completely developed until they were 3 years old. They didn't sleep through the night for the first 3 years. It was quite often that Jack would wake up before me and take them out driving so I could get some more shut eye before I had to get up and get ready to go to work.
Eventally we moved from our little apartment to a 3 bedroom apartment with a pool and a balcony. One of the bedrooms had double doors, and I guess you could use it for a library or whatever you wanted if not for a bedroom. The place was really big after the little apartment. Sidra kept saying she wanted to go home. She missed the little place and didn't understand we were home. The manager we had at first liked kids and had no trouble with them playing outside. But the apartments changed hands and the new manager refused to let kids play outside. Our kids were all little, and needed a place where they could run and play outside. So, one day Jack had me go to work, and he went house-hunting. That evening he picked me up from work and we went to see the house he had found. The yard was sort of messed up, but I liked the house. It had a large living room with an open beam ceiling, a nice size dining room and kitchen, 3 bedooms, a family room, and a patio and nice backyard. I really liked it, and the person renting it out seemed nice. She liked me, I learned later, and so we made arrangements to move in. The first day was the 1st of May and we decided to leave everything in boxes and took the kids to Disneyland to celebrate. We stayed for the fireworks at midnight, then took the kids and made our departure. When we got to the car, we changed them all on the tailgate into their pajamas. We had brought blankets and pillows, and once they were tucked in we got in the car and began our journey home. The kids were asleep before we got out of the parking lot.
We stopped at Jack-In-the-Box for coffee about half way home and we had to roll down the windows and turn on the radio to keep ourselves awake. When we got home, we carried the kids in the house, tucked them in their beds, and went to bed ourselves. Thus we began our new life, and the kids grew 3 sizes that summer because they could go outside and run and play like normal kids. It gave them all good appetites and they would run in and out all day long eating and getting into the milk and orange juice. They were beautiful, healthy, and happy, and so were we. The backyard was really nice. On sunny days, I'd make iced tea and sit out back and enjoy it.
There were many changes in store for us, and life would bring us many challenges, but we were up for it. In the next chapter, I will talk about those changes and the fun we had being in a house and have a nice yard and good neighbors. So stay tuned, and I'll be back soon with more about the Tyler Gang!
Love You Grandkids,
G-Maw
