More Early Years..Portsmouth to UVA

Just before Christopher's first birthday, we moved into our first house.  Tink had not completed his Master's Degree so his time at Old Dominion College was up.  He had worked establishing the gymnastic program there and at Virginia Beach Public Schools. 

We moved to The Churchland area of Portsmouth, VA  across the river from my home town of Norfolk VA.  I was a stay at home Mom with a year old baby that was very smart.  Not being able to pick him up and carry him to bed or to get him in the house, I had to resort to outsmarting him and sometimes to bribery.  "Come in the house and you can have a cookie."  Was something that I found myself saying.

Our parents were full of advise on how to raise our child.  Particularly Tink's step mother, who I felt did not approve of how I was raising my son.  However, she did not fully understand the difficulty of taking care of a baby with out being able to scoop him up and put him where you wanted him to be.  Chris was particularly smart, so it was a challenge to say the least.  Looking back on things,  I had done a good job.  Good thing that I was so young.  Tink was always a help when he was around.  I was on my own while he was at work.  In our new house there was a baby gate on one doorway to our family room/ Kitchen and a door on the other doorway.  there was also a door to the back yard, which had a small fenced in area.  This was just about perfect.  I could be in my kitchen/ family room working and Chris could be playing nearby. 

Having contained areas helped a lot.  My parents realized that I needed help keeping up the house.  My Dad own an Art Gallery in nearby Norfolk.  I had a job once a week helping him do restoration of oil paintings in his gallery.  I made $5.00 an hour.  While I worked I had the help of a maid, Pinkie Hankerson, who helped mother at home once a week.  She took a bus from Norfolk to Portsmouth.  I would pick her up and she would help take care of Chris and vacuum for me.  When I would come home, Chris would be sparkling clean in his best clothes and Pinkie would be smiling widely.

 Tink particularly liked chocolate chip cookies.  One day after making a batch, I put them on the counter to cool.  There was a chair next to the counter.  Chris climbed up onto the chair to reach the cookies. He took two.  I watched he climbed down get behind the chair where Cedar, our golden was sleeping.  With a cookie in each hand he proceeded to feed one to our dog and eat the other himself.

Another time after his bath he got away from me and made a run for it in his birthday suit, opening the back door and dashing into the back yard.  He took a lot of teasing later as the family streaker.  Because he was walking, I gained a lot more freedom myself.  He would climb into the car and I could go to the store or for a ride.  We would give Tink a ride to work and pick him up.  One time I ran a stop sign by mistake and Chris popped up to tell me that I had missed that sign.

I was lucky that one of my best friends lived in Portsmouth as well.  Polly's  husband, Tom Glassburner, worked at Frederick Military Academy in the city.  She was close enough to visit back and forth.  Tom would call and say, "Tonight's Hamburger Night, come on over."   We would pack up Chris and head to their house.  Tom and Tink were good friends as well.   

That summer Tink worked at a day camp somewhere off the James River.  We went to see the camp one day and he took Chris and myself for a ride in a row boat own by the camp.  We went through marsh grasses in a tidal area.  I had never seen an area like that before. 

That same summer I attempted to potty train Chris, at under two.  What was I thinking?  He would turn two that August.  He was almost trained, when my folks asked if Chris and I could go with them to New York on a vacation.  Dad always combined business with pleasure.  He had a friend who owned a gallery, who let us stay in an Apartment of his off the Hudson River Parkway.  There was a doorman at the front of the building.  It was very exciting being in the city.  We when to dinner one night to a famous Italian Restaurant.  It was getting late and Chris was tired and a little cranky.  A nice waiter noticed his head nodding and brought a stack of napkins for him to put his head down on.  Chris fell fast asleep.  I wished we had a camera to get a photo of that.

We also visited with my great uncle and aunt in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.  My brother helped carry Chris.  Because Chris had coloring similar to my brother, Don, all the girls his age thought that Chris was his.  There was not much flirting for him that vacation.  Another uncomfortable factor for Don was that Chris was not totally potty trained and had several accidents while he was being held.  In other words mother was trained rather than baby.  I forgot my birth control pills on that trip.  "Oh, well," I thought, "I will start back up as soon as I get home."  Famous last words.  A month or so later, I had a urinary infection.  Went to the doctor for medicine and the doctor told me that I was pregnant.  We had planned on having another baby, but wanted to wait a little longer.  We were over joyed.  I remember that we went out for pizza to celebrate. 
That anniversary, Tink bought me my first bicycle.  Because I had polio and had little power in my legs and poor balance, I had never had anything other than a tricycle.  What he gave me was a bicycle built for two.  We strapped a child seat on the back and road all over our neighborhood.  He did most of the work and I was able to get some exercise.  It was so much fun.

The spring of the next year, we decided that Tink should go back to school to finish up his Master's Degree.  He called the University of Virginia inquiring about a teaching scholarship.  He knew the person in charge. They said," Send us your records.  We have an opening and it can be yours."  Just like that life changed.