And Erik Makes Three - Bros

And then little brother Erik came along with his dark curly hair and finally I felt like there was someone like me.  The other four all had blonde hair and here was I with my mousy brown.  Erik’s was darker than mine but he also had lots and lots of curls.  With Erik I definitely fell into the role of babysitter / mentor since I was nearly 10 years older than him.  One of my early memories of Erik was the way he went from scooting around on his butt, using leg action to move around, to walking.  Erik really never crawled. 
From a very young age Erik was in love with drawing and while the rest of us got nadda from grocery shopping Erik frequently would get a writing pad so that he could draw.  When I was in high school I posted one of his drawings of Popeye in my locker and afterwards several other girls had pictures from their own younger siblings in their lockers but none compared with the talent of Erik.  He could draw Popeye spot on when he was only 5.  Erik has a true talent for caricature drawing and some of his art is truly hilarious. 

Another big obsession with Erik when he was a toddler was keys.  The amount of times Mom and Dad had to search the house for Dad’s car keys I cannot tell but one of the oddest places they found the keys was behind the toilet.  Erik had discovered the round thingumajig and used it as the steering wheel I suppose.  Anyway, the keys were found dangling there.  After that Mom bought Erik a set of toy keys which ended up behind the toilet all the time but at least Erik could find them and kept himself occupied while Mom cleaned house and we were in school.

I remember one dreadful day when I came home for lunch while in Junior High.  Mom wasn’t home.  The house was locked up.  Mrs. Alexander, our neighbour, was on the watch and brought me over to her house and as each of my siblings came home for lunch she would bring us into the house.  It turned out that Erik had fallen all the way down the basement stairs and then landed on a table he had dragged to the end of the steps which cut open his forehead.  Mom had to rush him to Dr. Scott’s house for stitches (I think she must have driven down there herself although I can hardly picture her doing so as she is NOT good in a crisis situation).  It was very upsetting to all of us, not so much because Erik was hurt but because OUR MOTHER WASN’T HOME.  Unheard of!

Selfish thinking?  We sometimes talk about helicopter parenting today but the truth is that when I was a kid all the mothers were home so when one wasn’t the kids were almost always upset because it just wasn’t NORMAL.  I guess we were helicopter kids!