Jeanette Gets Her Way

I ended yesterday with Nette not going with the flow.  Here’s an interesting conundrum because as my readers, family and friends know I am NOT a pushover.  I am strong, decisive, assertive and well, determined.  Jeanette, generally speaking is quite the opposite.  She does not like to rock the boat, she is a peacekeeper and very easy going.  However, as kids I was much easier, indeed I was probably the easiest of the lot when it came to accepting whatever was said.  If Mom said “don’t plague me with stuff at the grocery story” I did not.  I honestly don’t think I ever asked for anything when we went to the store.  Nette, well, that command went in one ear and out the other.  She could be quite stinky about it and John and I have both seen her have a complete and utter meltdown when she got it into her head to want something.  We are talking about a particular brand of cereal, or a cookie, or something equally trivial.  She could really take a fit (memories of my other baby sister Char, but that only happened once and I put an immediate stop to that . . . shortly to be related).

I have vivid, really VIVID, memories of Jeanette jumping up and down, rocking back and forth and having such convulsive fits you would absolutely not believe it was her today!  (These were done at home, not in the store).  John was only 2 but he remembers Jeanette’s first day of school, she had one of her meltdowns even before they got to the school but then she became a basket case when her teacher turned out to be a Negro.  I don’t know why that would set her off but apparently it did (I was already in my class so I only heard about this afterwards), maybe just too much strangeness in one day since we really hadn’t seen a Negro before, up close.

Yep, Jeanette was something else when she was a kid but one of the things she seemed to have a genius for was being able to get money and things out of Mom and Dad.  She wasn’t sneaky about it, she simply ASKED.  And she got.  Maybe it was charm, maybe it was her bright, sweet look.  But my parents would give her a nickel, lunch money, something special . . . because she asked.

I hope Nette doesn’t get upset with this post – she knows I love her to the moon and back, but recalling childhood memories . . . some of them are so fickle, funny, precious and SO ON THE MONEY.  J