Oh Riddle

My Mother....the riddlest of them all.

That name started started 48 years ago...when my (now 80-year-old) mother was pregnant with my brother Joe. Rejeana and I were very interested in the pregnancy because we knew it from the beginning and were allowed....even in those semiVictorian times....to feel him kick. But Rejeana, with her usual twinkle in her eye, had the idea to start "mashing" Junior. She would put her arms around Mother's big stomach and mash hard with the points of her finger. Rejeana's fingers were sharper and smaller so they must have hurt...but mine were older and stronger so they hurt in their own right! This is still funny to me, I'm laughing as I type, even though there's nothing funny about it. We'd run real quick because Mother would turn around and slap us, and we'd be giggling and run tell each other! Then we'd say "Ohhhhhhhhh Riddle".

Maybe that's why her water broke 3 weeks early, we'll never know. But by that time she'd forbidden either of us to come behind her.