Today I Am Four Years Old

Very exciting day today. I have lived four years! Ivah baked a cake and I helped. Licking the mixer hands. Ivah lets me hold them after we are done. Cookie dough is my second favorite but this is best. Next we decorate, Aunt Vi and Ivah have so many little plastic things to decorate cakes with. The candles sit in plastic candle holders, I like the horse best, but I could chose elephant, camel, about every animal in the zoo. I like that my birthday falls in spring, all the pretty flowers. When spring comes, I know my birthday is going to come soon. I like that it is 31 and the last day of the month. I think I can remember that easy. Aunt Vi will buy me a nice present, a bunch of presents, all wrapped real nice. She already bought me a stuffed dalmation puppy from 101 dalmations, I LOVED that movie! The line to get in was around the block at the Embassy theater, The Embassy is pretty new, it has a big organ. I think Fort Wayne is a small town. New York is big. I want to go to New York one day. She and Ivah wrap so good. I want to bake cakes, wrap presents, throw a party just like them when I grow up. I can't wait to grow up. Supposed to be a secret, but I know Mom got me a rocking horse! I think Aunt Vi paid for it. Mom never has much money. Aunt Vi owns this whole house and I think she is rich. I said that once and she laughed. I love to hear people laugh. Aunt Vi laughs all the time, but come to think of it, Ivah is not a laughing person. I think it is because Ivah prays with her mom and her mom is strict. When I grow up I might be a TV actor like Lucille Ball and make people laugh, or Tennessee Ernie Ford. Aunt Vi is mad Ernie is not going to be on TV. There wasn't always TV. I got to see President Kennedy get in...in..aug a rated, sworn in as president. I love him. I think he is honest and will make a good president. Mom says I shouldn't talk about politics or religion in front of other people. That doesn't make sense to me, but lots of what Mom says makes no sense to me. She says she is shy. She tells people I am shy just like her. That is not true. I wish she would stop saying that, just because my brother Manny talks to strangers. I could talk to strangers but I don't want to, that's all. Mom says I talk all the time. Aunt Vi says I never shut up and Ivah tells Aunt Vi I am just like her, two peas in a pod. I don't know what a pod is, but if I am just like Aunt Vi that is fine with me. I love my mom but she is so afraid all the time. Don't tell I am a Democrat, don't tell I play poker, don't tell Manny has a bad foot, don't tell, no wonder she doesn't talk to strangers, how can you remember all you can't tell? I guess easier to shut up. Marge says I am verbal and that is good. I like Marge. She drives a fancy caa and lets me play with the steering wheel. I want one of those toys on TV where it is like a little caa dashboard. Aunt Vi is the only woman besides Marge who drives. Marge is young and pretty. She has a pretty daughter who is adopted, but she is still my cousin. Adopted means they had other parents who had to give them away. Some people act so strange about it. Mom says that is wrong. I agree. Mom and I agree about things like that. We agree about President Kennedy too, but the rest of the family doesn't like him. They talk bad about him all the time and Mom never says a word. They talk bad about colored people and that makes me so mad! I hate that Mom never says a word. I would, but she said it is not polite to talk about politics. Mom and I talk bad about people who talk bad about colored people. We hope President Kennedy will fix all that. Our secret. I do like my secrets with Mom. The boys don't have secrets, as far as I know and I know a lot! I like to listen to the adults. They are so interesting. I learn so much. My mom is divorced. That means I had a father but he left. I don't know where he is. Once he came over at Christmas and gave me a stupid, cheap, plastic pin ball game. I hated it. I threw it away as fast as I could. He looks like a liar to me. His smile seemed fake like a bad actor. Lucy smiles real big and that is to be funny or real big frown to be sad and THAT is funny, because they are not how a real person smiles or frowns. His smile looked half normal happy and half sad with some mean in it and he was so bored, wanted to leave fast. The boys were excited to see him, but the boys are not too smart. I won't say that to anyone because the family thinks Manny is so smart. I think he is stupid in a mean way, like he is better than everyone. My other brother, I do feel sorry for him, he is quieter and gets left out of stuff, even though they seem to really like each other, but Mom pays more attention to the younger one, just a year younger, because she knows Manny is favored by Aunt Vi. Manny is mean to me, says awful things to me, he got in trouble for saying there was no Santa Claus and that was a big deal because it made me so mad at my mom, I knew from then on that she lies to me. A lie changes a relationship, it just does, no matter how you slice it. If Mom heard me say that she would say, "Where do you get that stuff from?" I am a big surprise to her. She is FOREVER asking why would I say that or where did I hear that or how do I know that on and on. I read books, magazines, newspapers, watch TV, listen to radio and all the adults, stuff goes into my head and I think about it all. I think my mom is not too smart, but I love her anyway. She says some very smart things sometimes, what other people told her like her father (he is my grandfather, she calls him Pop, I like him a lot)(a lot, lot, is a measurement that means big, I must have read that.) said "never judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes." That means you can't know why someone acts like they do if you haven't led their life, so don't judge and say they did wrong. Grampa must be really smart. That makes sense to me. Gramp sent me a dollar for my birthday, He sends a dollar every year. Day I was born he gave me a SILVER dollar, it looks just like the other dollar but says silver on it. I am not spending that, my plan is to keep it until I am real old like Aunt Vi and if I am poor like mom, it may be worth more. Aunt Vi is fifty years older than me, so she is 54. I add real fast like Aunt Vi. Ivah taught me and she likes to show off how fast I add. Ivah walks with me to church on Sundays and gives me a root beer live saver to suck as we walk and talk, well, I mostly talk because Ivah is shy like my mom. I talk all the way, but in church I am quiet, somebody else is always talking. I like the preacher. He is stocky and screams real loud. He believes what he says, but the minute people leave the church they don't do what they just Amened they agreed with! Even my family, except mom and she doesn't go to church except on Easter, they go to church, say how important it is, but they don't do what the Bible says. Ivah gave me a Bible for my birthday, I like it, it is small to fit my hands and has colored pictures. How can anyone know what Jesus looks like though? The camera wasn't invented then. Just old paintings, I paint my mom and it looks nothing like her. I can't paint or draw very good though. Why must I stay inside the lines? Maybe when I grow up I will understand. Adults like to say to me, when you grow up you will understand. Oh, brother! I think I am going to die young, maybe never grow up, I just have a feeling. Aunt Vi says she had that feeling too, but look how old she is now! Fifty-four...I keep forgetting, I want to ask my mom how old SHE is. I think I asked her last year but I forgot, I hate to forget stuff, I keep thinking about stuff over and over so I won't forget. All those graves at the cemetery and even Aunt Vi forgets who some of those dead people are. That seems so sad to me. Nobody should be forgotten. I remember lots of stuff from when I was three years old. Nobody believes me, I think adults forget on purpose. I know my mom does. To me that is sad. I want to learn more about her if I grow up. I think I will die young. Mom says I should be president like Kennedy, but I don't want to tell her I think I will die soon.