Being A Young Mother

If you think that my life as a wife and mother was somewhat mundane, I totally agree with you. 

Unless you consider the universal daily tasks of day- to-day living and 'bringing up children' exciting, it is simply a necessary and essential part of living. 

I am a firm believer that you need to do all you can for your children if you bring them into this world.

I lived for my girls those days. It, sometimes, made my husband jealous.

Of course, as parents, we delighted in baby's first step, the baby's first word, and so on. 
Let me tell you, life is not a "bowl of cherries." Oftentimes, being a disciplinary, a teacher, a nurse, a companion, a healer; in short, a "mother", is a major undertaking. I did take my job seriously; though, at times, I wished for a "place of my own" to hide from it all, even for just a few minutes.

Melinda was a good natured middle child, and easy to take care of.
Cissy. Well, Cissy is Cissy. Bubbly and loving.

Cynthia was born mature. She also has a very inquiring mind and a great memory.
She did not get that from me - my memory is often like a sieve. 
She did inherit her father's stubbornness.

We did not have Kindergarten in the public schools in Albuquerque at that time. But there was a program on the television every morning, equivalent to kindergarten. Cynthia and I watched it together every weekday. And everyday, we practiced what she learned. By the time she was five, she was reading ''books", not just nursery rhymes. 
She loved to read. She read everything - the milk carton at breakfast, the signs on the road, and even some parts of the newspaper or magazines, which were meant for grown-ups.
She has a memory like an elephant. 
She memorized all the TV programs. We would often ask her when we needed to know when a program was to come on.

When she was six, we enrolled her in school.
Soon the teacher called us to have a meeting. 
She said that Cynthia was able to do all the work in the first grade and recommended that she be placed in second grade. The only part that she needed was some extra work on Math. The other thing was, She was small in statute and quite slender, and we needed to think about her 'keeping up' with her classmates socially.
We decided to move her up a grade, and see how it worked out. We agreed that, if it posed a problem, we could change the situation immediately. 
And I started to drill her on Math everyday at home. She soon caught up with her fellow students and did better than any of them.
In later years, boys would call her, not for dates, but for help in Math and Science problems.
She graduated from High School, a valedictorian.
She won scholarships, a number of them.
She went on to University of Oklahoma for two years before entering the professional "School of Optometry" in Indiana. 
She was the youngest in her Optometry Class at Indiana University to graduate and with honors.
Many of her classmates still tease her at School Reunions. They woulds say," How old were you, Cynthia, when you graduated? Thirteen?"

Work is, a lot of times, mundane. 
How many of us are fortunate enough to have a job that we absolutely love?  If you are lucky enough to have job you love, cherish it. Or, make it so. The rewards are worth it.

Throughout those first years of my life in the U.S., I regularly wrote to my parents. I also was the designated writer who wrote to my husband's parents. 
My mother-in-law passed away not too long after we moved to the U.S. A pity. She did not have the chance to know her grandchildren. 

The other grandparents did get to see the children when we took a trip back to Hong Kong in the summer of 1966, before moving to Ada, Oklahoma.