Chapter V – Our Own House
When I was twenty-four and Anthony was three, we moved in our own house about ten miles away from my parents (they lived in Brandon and we moved to Pearl). This was the first time I’d ever lived on my own and I was very proud of my little three bedroom one bath house. Anthony had a bedroom, I had a bedroom, and the third room was his playroom which was full of toys.
Once we moved out, Anthony started having a lot of behavioral problems. I believe it was because I disrupted his life by moving. The only life Anthony had ever known was living with my parents and now it was just the two of us living alone. That had to confuse him. Where were Mimi and Charlie?
One night Anthony and I were in the back of the house when there was a loud noise which sounded like glass breaking in the kitchen. I just knew someone had broken the kitchen door window and was coming in our house. I was scared because I had nothing to arm myself with. I told Anthony to stay in his room in the closet, where he’d be safe and I’d be right back. I tiptoed across the hall to the bathroom, grabbed the wasp spray from underneath the sink, to defend myself with, turned around and tripped over Anthony. He had very quietly followed me across the hall to the bathroom. Then I whispered for him to stay in the bathroom while I went to the kitchen to see what had happened. I started walking down the hall and Anthony was right on my heels every step of the way. I finally realized he wasn’t going to stay where I told him to so together we tiptoed towards the kitchen, prepared to spray and blind anyone in there. Once I rounded the corner and could see in the kitchen I started laughing, that awful noise we heard was a ceramic plaque, mother had given me as a house warming gift. It had fallen off the wall and broken, what a relief that was.
One of my fondest memories was every morning Anthony would sit in the bathroom floor while I put on my makeup and I’d sing silly songs to him. I’d sing the song from the Oscar Mayer commercial, “Oh I wish I was an Oscar Mayer wiener for that is what I’d truly like to be e e for if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener, everyone would take a bite of me.” Then I’d start the Munster’s theme song, “Do do do do snap snap do do do do snap snap do do do do do do do do do do do do snap snap.” Then I’d sing the bologna song, “My bologna has a first name its o-s-c-a-r my bologna has a second name its m-a-y-e-r, oh I love to eat it every day and if you ask me why I’ll saaaaay cause Oscar Mayer has a way with b-o-l-o-g-n-a how’s that?” I would sing these songs over and over to him until I was ready for work.
As I mentioned before, I was very proud of my little house, so the first time Anthony destroyed something in our house I didn’t really know what to think. I didn’t understand why he didn’t want to take care of something that belonged to us. I’d just bought a brand new shower curtain for the bathtub and was very disappointed to find Anthony had taken a pair of scissor and cut holes all in it. Even though shower curtains don’t cost a whole lot, I was on a tight budget. Now I was going to have to spend the money that should have gone towards something else to replace the shower curtain. Needless to say, I wasn’t very happy with him at all.
When we first moved in, I did a lot of yard work. The previous owners had plants of the same kind bunched together and I wanted them spread throughout the yard to make it look more colorful. I would dig up existing plants, which saved me a lot of money in the long run, and replant them other places in the yard.
One day I dug up several baby crape myrtles and replanted them in a row between the neighbor’s house and ours. Once I got finished doing all that hard work, I stepped back and looked at the finished product, I was rather proud of how my yard looked now. I went inside to take a shower and when I walked back outside I saw Anthony kicking down the crape myrtles I had just planted and then stomping on them. I was furious because I’d put a lot of time and effort into digging up and replanting those trees. I walked over to him, grabbed him by the arm, and spanked him all the way back to the house. I didn’t understand why he was destroying everything I was working so hard for.
Because Anthony and I lived on our own now, Mother would try to do more things with Anthony. One time she entered him in a pageant where he dressed as Clint Black. He wore a black suit and played a toy guitar. Being an only child, Anthony wasn’t one to share his toys at all. While we were watching the other contestants, this little boy walked up to Anthony and asked him if he could see his guitar. Mother and I just sat there watching to see what Anthony would do. We figured he was going to pull the guitar towards himself and say, “No, it’s mine!” To our surprise, Anthony handed the little boy his guitar and let him play with it. Mother and I both looked at each other in shock. Maybe he was growing up a little and hopefully in the future he’d share his toys with other children.
When Anthony was little I worked nights as a Phlebotomist for St. Dominic Hospital and while I was working Anthony would stay at my parent’s house. One night while I was at work, Mother came to the lab with Lil (a dear friend of hers) and Anthony. Anthony was holding his lip as Mother explained to me they were at Lil and Ray’s house when Lil’s poodle bit him on the lip. I explained to my co-worker what was going on and I walked around to the emergency room with Lil, Mother, and Anthony. Once we got around there, Dr. Terry looked at Anthony’s lip and decided it needed to be stitched up.
Dr. Terry deadened Anthony’s lip and began stitching it up. Unbeknownst to us, Anthony was watching everything Dr. Terry was doing. As he began to tighten the second stitch in Anthony’s upper lip, Anthony said, “Are you going to tie a knot in it too?” Everyone started laughing. Lil’s poodle bit Anthony’s lips pretty good, he ended up with two stitches in his top lip and two stitches in his lower lip.
Two weeks later I took Anthony back to the ER to get his stitches taken out, he did a lot better getting the stitches then having them removed. Clayton was the nurse that attempted to remove Anthony’s stitches, he got the two stitches in his top lip removed and that was it. After that Anthony decided he was done and he wouldn’t allow Clayton to remove the two remaining stitches in his bottom lip. After doing his best to persuade Anthony to let him remove the stitches and Anthony refusing, Clayton finally gave up. He ended up sending the suture removal set home with me to finish the job. I’d never removed stitches from someone before nor was I trained on how to do this but Clayton explained it to me and when we got home I finished the job. This was just the beginning of many injuries to come and little did I know that within a very short period of time I’d become a self-made nurse.
Once Anthony turned four years old he had a tendency to leave the yard and wander the neighborhood. It wasn’t as dangerous then as it is now but you still didn’t want your child wandering the neighborhood at the age of four. I would turn my back for just a second, turn back around and he’d be gone. I’d deadbolt and chain the door so he couldn’t get out, the next thing I knew there would be a chair in front of the door and the door would be left wide open. I would walk the streets going from door to door to see if anyone had seen Anthony, I was so embarrassed and afraid someone was going to call Social Services on me because I wasn’t watching my child properly.
We were both very lucky that no one tried to kidnap him or harm him in any way. It would’ve been very easy to do because he was four years old, trusted everyone, and didn’t have a care in the world. God kept a close eye on this child and protected him from a lot of things back then.
That same year we spent Thanksgiving at my parent’s house because my father makes awesome dressing plus I didn’t want to cook. We were all sitting at the table eating when all of a sudden Anthony started choking. I jumped up and picked up the phone to dial 911. When I looked up and in what seemed like one motion, I saw my father jump up from his chair, grab Anthony from behind, and perform the Heimlich maneuver on him. I just stood there with my mouth open while watching my father then all of a sudden this piece of turkey flew out of Anthony’s mouth. As soon as he could breathe again, Anthony turned around, looked at my father and said, “Charlie, don’t you ever do that again!!! It hurt!!!” We all started laughing, thank goodness he was okay.
As you can see from the short stories in chapters IV and V, Anthony was a handful. He was a very hyper and destructive child which I had a hard time controlling. As I mentioned before, I was very young when I had him not to mention the fact I was a single parent which makes it even harder. Looking back, I loved Anthony dearly but if given the chance to do it all again I’d definitely be married before having children. What I thought was going to be something that would love me unconditionally ended up being something that demanded a lot of attention and I was not ready for that at all.