Big Boy Adam Jay

I remember someone asking me at my 5-year class reunion if I liked children. My answer, was “Yes, barbecued please.”  I was only 22. I wasn’t ready to have children. Just leave me alone. I had no plans of being Betty Crocker.

When I was pregnant with Adam I ate a lot of pizza and pepperoni rolls from a place in Monongah called Preolette’s.  Their pizza and rolls were to die for, so I stopped there a lot. The owner, Bonnie, told me that I was going to have a child with red hair because I was eating so much pizza sauce. After Adam was born, the first place I took him was to Preolette’s. Didn’t say a word, but plopped him down on the counter, and twirled the carrying seat around and told her she was right. Adam was born with red hair. My husband was Italian and had coal black hair. (And no, I didn’t have an affair with Ronald McDonald, although I did have to hear that remark. Wow, how original people are.)

Adam was and still is so much fun. I really over-stimulated him. When I was pregnant, I read Dr. Suess’s ABC book every evening to my stomach. (I was doing an experiment) I did my student teaching when he was 3 months old, but other than that, I stayed home and we played all day long.  You know how parents  point to a part of their body and say, “What’s this?”  Kid says, “Eye..” and so on? Well, I took it a couple steps further. Now, you have to understand that I was all about amusing myself.  When the family got together the next time, it was showtime.  “Adam, what is this?”  “Nose.”  “Good, and this?”  “Ear”. “This?”  “Clavicle.”  My mom looked at me like I created a monster, all the while I was cracking up. Oh, I wasn’t done. Adam knew meta-tarsal and humerus also. And that he liked to play on the “Geodesic Dome.”  I guess what was scary was that he learned these words fairly easy. I knew then the kid was quite intelligent.  I passed down good genes. Uber intelligent…

Adam was not without fault, however.  He got mad at inanimate objects. If he fell, he blamed the floor. If he clipped the corner, that got a scolding. He loved Tom Brokaw. When the evening news came on, he would crawl or walk over to the tv and put his face on the tv.  But, and this is the amazing part, when it was time for me to read to him, he always got the same book. You got it. Dr. Suess’s ABC.  So there.

I knew my son was going to be an economist when he was just a little boy.  He was a ring bearer for my brother’s wedding and he took the balloons down at the reception hall and went around in his little tuxedo and his curly red hair and sold them to the guests. He made $13 that evening. As he grew, so did his want for money.  He asked me if I wanted to borrow a quarter, and the next thing you know I was getting notes from his company that I owed money from the interest. Uh Oh. Shouldn’t he be playing with Lego’s or his Ghostbuster car?  I am so glad I kept everything he wrote.  He is going to be one embarrassed guy.

He had an entourage of stuffed penguins..Preston, Prescott, Peter and others with a P name. They  smoked paper cigarettes.

Adam had several bouts of pneumonia and was sick alot.  When he was about 5 , he had to get a shot for the pneumonia. I thought he would cry, but as soon as the nurse gave him the shot, he jumped up on the table,  mad as hell, pointed to her and said, “You’re fired! You go work for McDonald’s.”  He was also getting pissed off at strangers. Strangers were always running their fingers through his curly red hair, with the always added remark, “I bet he is ornery.”   The last time that happened, Adam gave the guy a death stare and shoved his hand away. He got the curls cut off the next day.  He also had some words for me. I had a habit of calling him baby. I guess one day he had enough of it. “Hey. Don’t call me Baby. Call me Big Boy Adam Jay.”

Adam will soon begin his third year of his PHD in Economics at WVU.  Big Boy Adam Jay is doing  just fine.

Iwill find a picture that is perfect for this blog..