Six of Seven, repost

JEFFREY ALLAN NAYLOR
Here goes on No. 6 child! Jeff arrived on this earth (officially, that is) to the drum-roll of a HUGE thunderstorm. The lightning must’ve struck nearby, because the whole hospital shook like a bomb had gone off, and that was Jeff’s introduction to his turn on earth. He was a big baby, 9 lbs. 10 oz. , pretty good size for a 5 ft. 3 mother. I’m going to post a picture of him taken the same day he was born, he was really cute, and the most alert looking baby in the nursery of the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton.The whole family was entranced with this new little person, and he grew and flourished, and was a source of such delight, easy to satisfy as long as his stomach was kept well-filled, a peaceable child…well named, because that is the meaning of the name Jeffrey, PEACE. Not that we knew that bit of homily at the time! I mentioned somewhere in a previous guest post about how I was allowing his dad to pick out his name, and he was all set to call him RUSSELL, and Judy piped up and said, "Oh good! The kids at school will all call him “RUSTY NAYL”.
So that name went down the tubes pretty fast.When Jeff started talking it was with a lisp! And it lasted for about 2 years, until he managed to get his tongue around those “esses”, meanwhile I was still keeping a record of the funny things our children would say, and the fact that Jeff “lithped” only made his sayings more hilarious. So I have a bunch of them documented in OUR KIDS big book, and I am sending the funnies page to Jeff so he can post it on the BLOG.Unlike our other boys, Jeff had little or no interest in sports or athletic stuff of any kind. Hanging from the top bar of the swing set in our back yard was about as athletic as he ever got, and I had to cross his palm with silver when he turned 8 and still had not attempted to ride a two-wheeler.(Interjection from Jeff, i liked recreation, but not sports).
His interests were mainly in school classes and projects of the sort to challenge his ingenuity and intelligence, both of which were considerable. In his school classes, his teachers literally adored the kid….hey, maybe that’s why we called him Allan for his second name, meaning “ROCK” (THE SOLID KIND, not “rock as in rock’n roll”). And also a secondary meaning of “HANDSOME”…… and he was truly a handsome child. He’ll probably be throwing a modesty fit about now, so I won’t make any comments about the present-day condition .(Jeff speaking, NOT HANDSOME).
But I have to have his grad picture on this post, because I am SO PROUD OF IT.I will remember always a couple of events that perfectly describe how adventurous Jeff was as a little kid; because they were so upsetting to me! When he was 3 years old, he got away from the back yard where his dad was supposed to be keeping an eye on him, and toddled three blocks through 4 lanes of traffic on the Bonnie Doon traffic circle. He was trudging across the middle of the circle, when a teenage Chinese boy caught up to him, decided this little stray needed help and intervened in the situation. He asked Jeff where he was going, and when J. said “Im going to tthhee my mummy!”, decided he’d better go along with him, so Jeff guided him to the shopping centre, to the office entrance half way down the mall, and upstairs to the very door of my office. You can imagine my surprise when a knock came at my door, and it opened to reveal my 3 yr. old and a perfect stranger! Who hastened to explain how it all came about, and how he was convinced this little guy was completely lost. Not so, he knew where he wanted to go, even though he’d only been there a couple of times. I remember phoning the house, and saying to Doug, “Is Jeff playing in the back yard?” Duh! (Poor guy, he’d worked all night and was exhausted.)And the time when Jeff was still 3, in Washington Park in Seattle, where we had gone to the zoo for the day (we were on holiday, tenting). With all the great animals to watch, somebody (!) wasn’t paying attention, and Jeff disappeared! Mind you, you have to understand that Jeff wanted to watch what he wanted to watch, and the heck if it didn’t happen to please all the rest of the family. So, we (all of us) became quite, quite frantic, calling for him, searching everywhere, No Jeff! Where was he, had he been abducted? Fallen into the lion’s den? Finally, on the brink of calling the authorities, and getting really desperate, we made our way back to the car, in the parking lot a few blocks away. And who should be sitting on the hood waiting for us but Jeff! Of course, the car was locked and he couldn’t get in. But up that high (on the hood) he could spot us all as we wended our way to find it amongst the hundred or so cars parked there. Jeff was again the source of a near-heart attack for me!
Aren’t memories great? I wonder now at this stage of my life how I survived trying to raise seven kids, trying to make ends meet, trying to help out with the family finances by doing my share in the working world, trying to do my church jobs adequately, trying to find time for hobbies and crafts. It all seems to be very daunting now that I’ve reached 84, but somehow we muddled through it all. And my husband always did his very best, was a good dad and provider. And we took great pride in our big family, with all their individual differences, and I think they turned out pretty well in the long run.