Age Two

 

“I am not an isolated, chronological numerical statistic. I am sixty-one, and I am also four, and twelve, and fifteen, and twenty-three, and thirty-one and forty-five and … and… and… If we lose any part of ourselves, we are thereby diminished. If I cannot be thirteen and sixty-one simultaneously, part of me has been taken away.” Madeleine L’Engle

 In an effort to discover who I was and connect the different periods that make me who I am, I compiled, from my parents’ letters, the many anecdotes about my two-year-old self.

Rita just came up the stairs to the study saying “Mama here comes me,” Often she thanks Jesus for the food at meal time and when she’s done she’ll say “Oh, I forgot to pray Grandma & Grandpa.” (5.04.46)

Rita surely is interesting. She just loves to pray. Several times after we have put her to bed we will find her on her knees in bed and when she sees us she will say she is praying for Jesus to bess the mish’aries. (5.13.46)

Rita is the limit! Happy as a lark all the time. Often she gets the first aid kit that looks like a little suitcase and her dolly and goes to the door saying that she is going to see “Grandma and Grandma.”

 Saturday [May 18, 1946] is Rita’s birthday, wrote Mother, and her daddy is making her a little table out of the wood we got our stove in. The top of the table will be a blackboard on one side and plain on the other. Dowdys have a blackboard and she is at it all the time when she’s over there.

So, added Dad, we thought that if we made a table with the underside of the lid painted with slating paint, she would have both in one. She will be able to set the lid on edge on the table when she wants to write. It was an ambitious project. After a day and a half really two days . . ., still I am not done, he wrote. Too bad she couldn’t have them for her birthday, but I’m sure she’ll enjoy them just as much later. (5.18.46)

I was thrilled with the birthday cards that arrived in the mail, especially the ones from my grandparents, and carried them around everywhere, even to the market. My parents were especially impressed with the poem Grandma Hoyt wrote. I was likely uninterested at the time, but now, how I wish it had survived the years among these old letters.

Kathryn is downstairs now making a birthday cake for Rita. Tomorrow we are going to eat with the Dowdys as a celebration for Rita’s birthday. They are going to kill one of two of their chickens. They keep chickens right now because the boys need something to do, but they are going to get rid of them soon. By the way, it’s almost impossible to get eggs here now. I never knew of a time in the U.S. that one couldn’t get eggs anywhere. I asked why it’s impossible to get them and they say the chickens are not “putting”.

Although my parents described me as happy as a lark all the time, I was clearly exhibiting the stubbornness of "the terrible twos".

At times Rita is a joy and other times she is a pest. When she wants something, she will stand and call for it with ever increasing volume until we get it for her. She has no patience whatsoever. She continues to wet her pants and even make other deposits in them too. The fact is, she never tells us when she wants to go. She is as stubborn as her Mother and Dad put together. Outside of these things, she is the best child in the world. (7.31.46)

She still doesn’t tell us when she wants to go to the toilet. Two years old seems pretty old to still be doing that.

We asked her several days ago if she had to go to the Toitie”. She replied, “No, Rita smell good.” Kathryn spanked her the other day and she came running to me and said, “Daddy, Mamma throw Rita around.” (7.09.46)

She has a determination equal to her father’s and mother’s put together. Surely hope she learns to obey soon. Of course, sometimes she is as nice as any of them, but other times she is just as bad as she was nice. (8.29.46)

I have concluded that the inspiration for the well-known poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (19^th century poet) came from a two-year-old!

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

We’re having our troubles with Rita already about saying things which aren’t very nice. She likes to tell us to “shut up”. Of course, she gets that from the Dowdy boys. I imagine it’s almost more than one could expect for boys not to use it once in a while. (5.27.46)

Rita is always surprising us with new words. We don’t like it, however, when she surprises us with ones such as “heavens and gods”. She gets these from Roger Dowdy who really doesn’t realize the wrongness of saying them either. (6.22.46)

Today I went out in the patio to see about Rita and there she was with all her clothes off but one shoe and sock. We quick took a picture then afterwards when she did it two more times we had to really paddle her good and hard. Fortunately it was warm outside otherwise she might have gotten a cold. The only thing I can think of that might have possessed her to do it was that she had on a dress that buttons down the front and it was probably fun to unbutton them. (8.09.46)

Rita is playing nearby with Kathryn’s button box. I imagine that brings back memories. Every once in a while she runs to Kathryn and tells her “Here’s another one Mamma.” She has noticed one of another kind. She plays more each day with her blocks. First she surprised us by being able to fit them back again into the wagon. Then today she built a tall tower. She is very interesting and yet very trying.

Just saw Rita get a little irritated with her blocks and I told her to put them in the wagon. She said, “No, you study.” We have lots of difficulties teaching her not to say no to us. We haven’t succeeded yet. (9.05.46)

Kathryn and I sure get a kick out of listening to Rita talk with the hired girl. She just jabbers on in meaningless sounds and enjoys every bit of it. (9.19.46)

The other evening we were getting Rita ready to go to the evening service and out of the silence, she spoke up and said, “And the Lord spake unto Moses”. We certainly had to laugh. We didn’t think she was getting anything out of our devotions in the mornings from the Pentateuch, but apparently she had. She also says the word tabernacle once in a while around the house. (7.23.46)

Rita is on my lap reading your letter. I just now asked her what “Grandpa and Grandma” wrote and she says, “They say, hello.” (10.03.46)

Mother’s response to her parents’ question, “What can we get you for Christmas?”: Books for Rita, the colored classics. She takes them to bed, to church and everywhere. Already she has 6 but they are practically worn out now.

Rita is growing in every way. She seems to grow in her stubbornness more than any of the other things. We must be rather hard on her at times. She’s just as mischievous as she looks in her pictures and plenty hard to manage. (11.09.46)

In these many anecdotes, I try to recognize characteristics that are constant, that make me who I am today. I had a happy disposition (unless I didn't get my way). I liked words, picked up language easily, and enjoyed books (when I wasn't tearing them up!). I was good at puzzle-type activities, as in arranging the blocks; and recognized patterns readily, as with the buttons. God’s Word was a constant presence, and I was picking up a missionary spirit. 

Hopefully since then, the negative behaviors have been redirected into purposeful determination and action.

Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

15 

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16 

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. Psalm 139:14-16 ESV 

 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6