1952 Bottle Baby

When my sister Lydia was a baby, I didn't like her at all.  I didn't like anything about her.  

My friend Annie Lovell (who was a bad influence on me in many ways), and I decided to steal her bottles.  We would wait until my mother gave her the bottle and then left.  We would sneak over and take the bottle away, unscrew the lid (we never could get the hang of sucking the nipple), and share all the milk.  It was horribly sweet.  In later years, the first time I ever tasted condensed milk, I realized it tasted a lot like that formula.  We would finish the milk, screw the lid back on, and give her back the empty bottle.  Of course, by then she was usually screaming bloody murder.

Sometimes we would throw the bottle on the floor as though she had done it.  My mother would come running and scold Lydia for crying or throwing the bottle.  We were all innocence, had just come in to see what she was crying about.  We did this for quite a long time.  Of course, we were caught.  

Oddly enough, the missing formula never seemed to keep Lydia from growing quickly and becoming more and more of a nuisance.

1952 The Grand Arrival

Before my sister was born, my mother and I painted a screen to go around her crib.  I remember it was a painting Mother did, green hills, blue sky, lots of trees and flowers, and white fluffy sheep.  My job was to paint the sheep.  It came out terrific.

My sister was born at the Catholic hospital in Le Havre.  The day she and my mother were coming home, my dad took me to the hospital and sat me on a bench in a hallway.  A nice French nun came and sat with me and told me about the baby.  I already knew, of course, and I was not impressed.  I really didn’t want a baby around.  Finally, my dad came back out with my mother and my new sister.  I was still not impressed.  She was ugly and had a red scrunched up face, and she was screaming her lungs out.  We got in the car (the little Hillman) and my mother sat in front with the baby.  I sat in the back behind my dad, trying to get as far into the seat as I could, trying to disappear.  

I never really did like her.  She made a lot of noise and people paid way too much attention to her.  Apparently she was a very pretty baby; I wouldn't know.  I remember very well at Christmas when she was about 2 months old, they put a pretty bright-colored blanket on our beautiful antique wood dining room table and laid her on it, with her presents around her.  What a silly thing to do.  

A few months later, when she was sitting up, I remember my dad taking a picture of us.  She was sitting on that dining room table again, and there was a glass vase of tulips beside her.  She was reaching for the flowers and I was on the other side just looking at her, wearing an embroidered pale blue satin bathrobe I had gotten for Christmas.  I hated that picture, because the attention was always on her reaching for that red tulip.  

The best thing about her being there, though, was that they stopped worrying about what I was doing.  We left France when she was about 8 months old.