Growing up the oldest of 7 brothers and sisters was definitely interesting to say the least. Finding room, time and safe transportation for a family that size was even more interesting.
I know what you're thinking- No, we are not catholic, and we didn’t have a farm or anything. (Ok, we kind of had a farm but that’s a whole other story.) The fact that they had found a cure for smallpox, we never had cable and I my parents were bored, strongly contributed to the small population boom in the Korvinos family.
In the beginning it was just Mom and me. My dad was long gone and my mother was young and beautiful. When I say beautiful, I mean model-esque. We were just two girls making our way in the world. She was super mom by day, keeping the house uber spotless, dancing the dust away and by night, she was disco diva, knocking em’ dead on the dance floor. My clothes were always neat, I had the best toys and she had time to tame my crazy curls, sing me to sleep and color fuzzy art posters with me. She knitted me blankets and read me bedtimes stories.
Then came the new dad and then the siblings.
One by one.
Pretty soon, my peaceful life of having mom all to myself was over. I had to share now. First it was Michelle.
I was so excited to have a baby sister. When I first saw her I tried to hug her death. I think I WAS Jealous too. Though I don't remember it, my mom says I was a little, teensy- tiny bit mean to her. I only remember wanting to feed her a bottle, but maybe I was hiding it from her instead.
I don't know.
After Michelle came Tresha.
Then my two brothers
then Kori
and finally by the time I was 12, my little sister Charlie was born.
For obvious reasons, the bedtimes stories and the singing and knitting and pick-nick lunches gradually stopped. I went from having my own room with all my things kept neatly in it to sharing with one, then two, sometimes even three of my siblings.
Getting around to the grocery store was more of a chore. In fact getting anywhere was a chore. We never seemed to have a big enough car and we NEVER had air conditioning. Air conditioning was rolling the windows down and praying to god a bee didn’t get stuck in your teeth.
When I was younger, there was no such thing as a mini-van. All vans were these titanic, cargo containers on wheels and if you were super cool, you had a wicked dragon painted on the side or a sweetass wizard.
Unfortunately, having 7 kids meant you needed one of these gargantuan beasts to fit everyone inside safely. Even more unfortunate was the fact that they weren’t always affordable. The only people you saw tooting around in them back then were old retired people, or families with two kids and a dog and a buttload of money. My parents must have visited 300 hundred car lots from the California border all the way to Portland looking for something that would fit all of us kids in it to no avail. I remember the car sales men looking at our small baseball team and immediately trotting across the parking lot to the giant van section.
We would roll up on the lot and they’d come out through the big glass doors like sharks. We prayed no one would drop any change. ... it was like blood to the lot sharks...they smelled us... smelled our desperation. What they didn’t smell was the fact that though my step dad had an awesome job and worked his hands raw, 7 kids can set a pay check on fire with how fast they can rack up the cost of living.
Anyway, they started with the large ticket items, but as they chissled away at my parents credit, the sharks ended up pointing us in the direction of beat up old station wagons. The one new station wagon we were able to get, got stolen shortly after buying it and because we only had liability insurance WE GOT SCREWED. So, we got old beaters after that.
It is really hard to look cool in a station wagon, not to mention that a station wagon was meant to only seat 4 kids in the back easily...not 7, and definitely not carseats as well. Back in the day when these old station wagons were made, there were no carseats, babies were held in the laps of their mothers (while they chain smoked and dad tossed a beer back on the way to the bowling alley), so in the early 80's when carseats became mandatory, the back seat space intended for 4 children began to shrink. Unlike a smaller sibling that can be smashed into another smaller sibling to make room, the cold metal and plastic of a carseat is not as …squishy. It can’t be squished into a more acceptable shape to fit that extra kid. You can’t sit on a carseat ALLREADY OCCUPIED by a toddler. I spent a good portion of my life with a sibling riding in my lap. I have concluded that this is why am short.
We used to fight over who got to sit by the window. Being the oldest meant I would beat any sibling down who tried to pry the window seat from me. It was the only way to get any air in that hot muggy, stinky car. It was the only way I could fight off the car sickness. Did I mention my parents smoked in the car? ugh.
Misery.
As the number of children in my family grew and we often had cousins and friends as well, some of us bigger kids were then forced to ride in the back of the station wagon, staring out at the cars behind us. Luckily we fogged the windows up often so it was hard to see who was crammed into the back.
The windows always fogged up and our mom would tell us to stop breathing. In fact she always seemed to be chanting something like “Stop farting, stop kicking, stop poking each other, stop looking at each other, make room for Michelle, make room for Jaime, lock the door, roll up the window, roll down the window, no booger flicking, give the baby her pacifier, give the baby her bottle, stop kicking my seat, stop pulling her hair, stop pulling my hair, don’t mess with the head rest. Get your foot off my seat belt, put on your seatbelt, DONT LEAVE CRAYONS IN THE CAR, stop playing with the ashtrays, don’t put your trash in the ashtrays, stop bouncing.”
Oh, we drove my mom crazy in the car. My mom would threaten to beat us within an inch of our lives, but since we had graduated to the cargo bay of the behemoth station wagon, we were far from her reach. She had to pull over to beat us to death, unlike the good ol days when she could hit all of us in one swipe, while driving and lighting a cigarette at the same time.
Sometimes we’d get bored and started fighting. My brother would make some comment about my hair which would then start a kick fight, which meant my brother and I would be laying on our backs, facing each other kicking like mad until someone started bleeding. This caused the car to wobble all over the road and mom to stop the car and break out her purple flip flop of doom.
Needless to say, road trips were unbearable.
There was a short period of time we didn’t have even a station wagon. All we had was my dads old truck, which we drove 50 miles from town to home, up a hill, in his single cab. That’s right, all those kids in 60 apache, in the cab and 2 adults. I got to ride on the floorboard.
It just so happens that my dad’s old truck had just had a sweet new 8 track installed. There was a rainbow of wires hanging down from the dashboard getting tangled in my hair. It was cold outside, but I was being cooked out by the heater that was blasting on the floorboard. I was cramped and miserable. Suddenly my mother freaked out and started hitting me in the back. I had no idea what the hell was going on. Apparently, the wires under the dash had shorted out and caught my 80's vinyl puffy jacket on fire. My back was smoldering.
No worries, my dad didn’t bother stopping the truck. He didn’t want to lose momentum on the big hill we had to climb. Mom bravely put the fire in my coat out as we putted along.
Later when that truck broke down, we used it for a play house. I got revenge on the truck by letting Barbie use the loose wires as a hammock and the glove box as an apartment. The truck then got fought back by causing a board to break loose from the playhouse we'd constructed in the bed of the truck. One day I hopped out of the back of the truck and directly onto a nail sticking out of the board.
These days, I really appreciate a car with leg room, a working stereo and windows that roll down. I don’t need fancy rims, or hood scoops or dinkle balls to be happy with my ride. Hell, just being the only person in my seat is glorious! I love all my siblings and I wouldn't change anything about my upbringing. Those cramped car rides helped shape me into the neurotic person I am today. ;)
I know what you're thinking- No, we are not catholic, and we didn’t have a farm or anything. (Ok, we kind of had a farm but that’s a whole other story.) The fact that they had found a cure for smallpox, we never had cable and I my parents were bored, strongly contributed to the small population boom in the Korvinos family.
In the beginning it was just Mom and me. My dad was long gone and my mother was young and beautiful. When I say beautiful, I mean model-esque. We were just two girls making our way in the world. She was super mom by day, keeping the house uber spotless, dancing the dust away and by night, she was disco diva, knocking em’ dead on the dance floor. My clothes were always neat, I had the best toys and she had time to tame my crazy curls, sing me to sleep and color fuzzy art posters with me. She knitted me blankets and read me bedtimes stories.
One by one.
Pretty soon, my peaceful life of having mom all to myself was over. I had to share now. First it was Michelle.
I was so excited to have a baby sister. When I first saw her I tried to hug her death. I think I WAS Jealous too. Though I don't remember it, my mom says I was a little, teensy- tiny bit mean to her. I only remember wanting to feed her a bottle, but maybe I was hiding it from her instead.
I don't know.
After Michelle came Tresha.
then Kori
and finally by the time I was 12, my little sister Charlie was born.
For obvious reasons, the bedtimes stories and the singing and knitting and pick-nick lunches gradually stopped. I went from having my own room with all my things kept neatly in it to sharing with one, then two, sometimes even three of my siblings.
Getting around to the grocery store was more of a chore. In fact getting anywhere was a chore. We never seemed to have a big enough car and we NEVER had air conditioning. Air conditioning was rolling the windows down and praying to god a bee didn’t get stuck in your teeth.
When I was younger, there was no such thing as a mini-van. All vans were these titanic, cargo containers on wheels and if you were super cool, you had a wicked dragon painted on the side or a sweetass wizard.
Unfortunately, having 7 kids meant you needed one of these gargantuan beasts to fit everyone inside safely. Even more unfortunate was the fact that they weren’t always affordable. The only people you saw tooting around in them back then were old retired people, or families with two kids and a dog and a buttload of money. My parents must have visited 300 hundred car lots from the California border all the way to Portland looking for something that would fit all of us kids in it to no avail. I remember the car sales men looking at our small baseball team and immediately trotting across the parking lot to the giant van section.
We would roll up on the lot and they’d come out through the big glass doors like sharks. We prayed no one would drop any change. ... it was like blood to the lot sharks...they smelled us... smelled our desperation. What they didn’t smell was the fact that though my step dad had an awesome job and worked his hands raw, 7 kids can set a pay check on fire with how fast they can rack up the cost of living.
Anyway, they started with the large ticket items, but as they chissled away at my parents credit, the sharks ended up pointing us in the direction of beat up old station wagons. The one new station wagon we were able to get, got stolen shortly after buying it and because we only had liability insurance WE GOT SCREWED. So, we got old beaters after that.
It is really hard to look cool in a station wagon, not to mention that a station wagon was meant to only seat 4 kids in the back easily...not 7, and definitely not carseats as well. Back in the day when these old station wagons were made, there were no carseats, babies were held in the laps of their mothers (while they chain smoked and dad tossed a beer back on the way to the bowling alley), so in the early 80's when carseats became mandatory, the back seat space intended for 4 children began to shrink. Unlike a smaller sibling that can be smashed into another smaller sibling to make room, the cold metal and plastic of a carseat is not as …squishy. It can’t be squished into a more acceptable shape to fit that extra kid. You can’t sit on a carseat ALLREADY OCCUPIED by a toddler. I spent a good portion of my life with a sibling riding in my lap. I have concluded that this is why am short.
We used to fight over who got to sit by the window. Being the oldest meant I would beat any sibling down who tried to pry the window seat from me. It was the only way to get any air in that hot muggy, stinky car. It was the only way I could fight off the car sickness. Did I mention my parents smoked in the car? ugh.
Misery.
As the number of children in my family grew and we often had cousins and friends as well, some of us bigger kids were then forced to ride in the back of the station wagon, staring out at the cars behind us. Luckily we fogged the windows up often so it was hard to see who was crammed into the back.
The windows always fogged up and our mom would tell us to stop breathing. In fact she always seemed to be chanting something like “Stop farting, stop kicking, stop poking each other, stop looking at each other, make room for Michelle, make room for Jaime, lock the door, roll up the window, roll down the window, no booger flicking, give the baby her pacifier, give the baby her bottle, stop kicking my seat, stop pulling her hair, stop pulling my hair, don’t mess with the head rest. Get your foot off my seat belt, put on your seatbelt, DONT LEAVE CRAYONS IN THE CAR, stop playing with the ashtrays, don’t put your trash in the ashtrays, stop bouncing.”
Oh, we drove my mom crazy in the car. My mom would threaten to beat us within an inch of our lives, but since we had graduated to the cargo bay of the behemoth station wagon, we were far from her reach. She had to pull over to beat us to death, unlike the good ol days when she could hit all of us in one swipe, while driving and lighting a cigarette at the same time.
Sometimes we’d get bored and started fighting. My brother would make some comment about my hair which would then start a kick fight, which meant my brother and I would be laying on our backs, facing each other kicking like mad until someone started bleeding. This caused the car to wobble all over the road and mom to stop the car and break out her purple flip flop of doom.
Needless to say, road trips were unbearable.
There was a short period of time we didn’t have even a station wagon. All we had was my dads old truck, which we drove 50 miles from town to home, up a hill, in his single cab. That’s right, all those kids in 60 apache, in the cab and 2 adults. I got to ride on the floorboard.
Later when that truck broke down, we used it for a play house. I got revenge on the truck by letting Barbie use the loose wires as a hammock and the glove box as an apartment. The truck then got fought back by causing a board to break loose from the playhouse we'd constructed in the bed of the truck. One day I hopped out of the back of the truck and directly onto a nail sticking out of the board.
These days, I really appreciate a car with leg room, a working stereo and windows that roll down. I don’t need fancy rims, or hood scoops or dinkle balls to be happy with my ride. Hell, just being the only person in my seat is glorious! I love all my siblings and I wouldn't change anything about my upbringing. Those cramped car rides helped shape me into the neurotic person I am today. ;)
I remember all of this. It made me giggle and it made me cry. As a mom if i could go back I would change things if i could but I wouldnt change having any one of you, life is so precious and I believed I had enough love for all of you.
ReplyDeleteKisses, hugs and I love yous were not something I grew up with and tried to make sure I gave them to my children.