I gave David [age 1 1/2] a haircut, washed and gave Ursula's hair a wash and a new hairdo. Also, we acquired another cat, which seems to be an ingrown habit.

Yesterday I told you Ursula got into David's bed and made him say his prayers. She did it again tonight. But what I forgot to tell you was that she started it "Now I lay you..." Because it was David, no doubt. Remember Susan White? She is Peggy White's littlest girl. She was saying the Lord's Prayer and her mother discovered she was saying, :Our Father who art in heaven, how could that be thy name."

Ursula's tricycle was in the way in the hall this morning and when I called her attention to it she told me, "I put some money in the meter and I'm going to leave it there." She's your daughter.

Yesterday morning we got up before light and got David down to Ambergs and Ursula into the hospital about eight-thirty. I didn't let her have anything to eat or drink first. They whipped her into the operating room and took out her tonsils and adenoids. I stayed in her room and did a square for the Red Cross. It took about twenty minutes or so --- not very long, --- and I wasn't worried because I had confidence in the doctors and because tonsils aren't much to worry about.

Ursula calls St. James the "born" hospital [she was born there], as I think I told you. Yesterday she had a sudden inspiration, but it was too good to yell out loud so she asked me very quietly and breathlessly as though it was too good to be true but still it wouldn't do any harm to ask. "Well, Peg, did I get a baby when I was in that hospital?" Shucks, disappointment. Maybe next time.

In Sunday School [Ursula] gets little papers to bring home, so I read them to her. One of them had a little song, "I can do it, I can do it, all alone." So later I heard her chanting "I can do it, I can do it, You just let me alone."

Grace Nease is such a bumbling, well-meaning thing and didn't help at all. I think she was partly responsible. Ursula is very uncooperative when she has charge of the [Sunday School] class. One day Ursula wouldn't sit down at all when the rest did and when I heard about it and asked her she remembered and said, "Oh, I just felt like being that way." Contrary, like her ma!

I hid the Easter eggs this morning and Ursula had a high time hunting them. David with a little coaching found five, but then lost interest and proceeded to sock them together. We ate some for lunch. Ursula thought it was fun, but then said she hadn't seen Santa Claus for a long time. We discussed where to put the Christmas tree, and agreed that the bay window was just made for it. She has the same feeling that I have. Easter is good enough when there is nothing else, but Christmas is far superior.

I find a bit of time now and then to read to the kids or play the piano and sing their little songs to them. They love it. The studio couch in the kitchen is a wonderful place to lie down with them for a little while and read to them while the meal is cooking. David has his own ideas about how the nursery rhymes should go, but for that matter, so does Ursula.

When you ask David where Peg is he points to me and says, "Right there," same for Ursula, but if you ask where David is he points to himself and says "Here" and when we ask where Honey is he says "Navy." David is a little like my grandmother. He thinks he can make you understand if he shouts loud enough. He raises himself on his toes and comes down with a crash while he yells the answer and looks very proud of himself. He says lots of single words for things he wants or meaning he wants to convey. He is dry practically every night now and he comes in and gets in bed with me in the morning. He comes pattering in with his hand on the front of his diapers shouting "Dry" loud enough to wake the dead. He is a wonderful snuggler though.

Ursula embarrasses me occasionally. Once I was telling someone how tall you were. Ursula added confidently that "Honey is tall enough so he kisses Peg right on the forehead and she kisses him on the chin. And sometimes he leans over a little bit and kisses her on the nose." And then the other night the Harders were here and something was said about the war's being over. Ursula told Gayle "We are going to have a new little baby when the war is over" and he said that was fine and then she added "But not until Honey comes home."

That is one thing I want to do for our little girl when you are home too. What fun we could have on a mopey evening after she is in bed. I have never had a doll house and I'd like to make one for Ursula some day for her bed room. We could make her a really magnificent one with our facilities and talents and inclinations.

Yesterday we had fun. We went to Hornell and I don't know quite what came over me but I lost my recent highpowered manner of doing things and I enjoyed my children thoroughly. We spent a long time watching a barber pole go around and also spent a long time in Penny's watching the little cars shoot along the wires to get change. Then we went into Liggett's and the children hd ice cream and I had an ice cream soda. When we came home we were all pooped so we went to bed for a nap, which you would have done too at that point. Ursula never wants to get to sleep, so I had her come in on my bed with me, when she soon popped off. In a little while David woke up enough to get into bed with me too, but then we all felt very dopey and we kept sleeping and waking up all afternoon and none of us felt like getting up.

While I was working on the floor the children were playing in the kitchen and having a good time. Ursula was teaching David his manners. She would say Thank you to him and then try to make him say You're welcome. But he kept saying "I are welcome" instead. She got sort of mad at him and gave him a good bawling out which was priceless. Also yesterday I was ironing and sitting on the stool and she couldn't get by. She tried to move me, stool and all, but couldn't so she told me to "Hitch up a little." That was a new one on me and thoroughly surprised me, as you can imagine. Honey, I wish you could see them.

Ursula found her letter from you and is enjoying it all over again. But, Honey! I never figured on it and I guess you didn't either --- David wants to know indignantly where his letter from Honey is. He is much insulted and I told him I'd tell you to send him one quick. So you better do it if you want to keep in right with your son.

Ursula takes on new size very day either in what she knows or what she does. Yesterday I was out in the garden getting some vegetables and had something cooking on the stove. She called out that it was boiling over so I told her to turn it off. She often turns the light on for me, since it is automatic. I didn't know if she would have the right kind of sense to turn it off again. But when I came in she explained to me very carefully that when it was turned off it wouldn't cook and then supper wouldn't get done, so she had just turned the light lower so it didn't boil over. She treats me, at such times, as though I am a little silly sometimes and she must handle me carefully because I insult easily. Such a funny little girl.

I didn't get to church again today, but I took over the Sunday School class. David went along and was a very good boy. He will fit in fine from now on. Grace Nease asked me to play the piano at the last minute, and I was amazed to see that I acquitted myself fairly well for sight reading. David came up and sat on the bench and ran me competition. I made him get down and go back to the little chairs, and kicked Grace in the teeth just as she was saying "David, wouldn't you like to sit up there by your mommy?"

I was putting Ursula to bed and sitting there talking to her, and she said "What are the little red things that crawl all over the walls?" She was sort of frightened. I guess I didn't tell you that she woke up yelling for me a couple of nights ago and I didn't wake at first, so by the time I went in she was really afraid. She said her bed was full of bugs and she couldn't kill them. I took her in my bed to get her quiet and just kept hugging her tight to make her feel safe. I was sleepier than hell, but not too sleepy to remember how a nightmare feels to a little girl. She would get all quiet and then suddenly jump and start hitting at an imaginary bug on the bed and yell at me to kill it. The poor little guy.

Finally she did get quiet and after a while went to sleep. Next day we looked all over for bugs but she didn't find any so I told her she had been dreaming and I didn't blame her at all but she would have to try to remember that it was just a dream and not real at all. But back to the red things that crawled on the wall. I thought "Now what!" Suddenly it dawned on me what it was. The light in her room is right in the middle and of course it shines in her eyes at night when she looks at it, and after the light is out it produces a positive after image that crawls down the wall. But to get it across to her what it was was another thing. So I asked her if she saw David and she said she didn't. Then she said that she did remember what he looked like even if he wasn't there. So I told her that little red light was her eyes remembering the light even after it had been turned out. I put it on a couple of times and then off, and sure enough, when she looked up there the little red thing was crawling down the wall again. I sure thought I was a smarty to figure that tough one out, and was I glad I took psychology! Not only enough to figure out the red thing, but also enough to explain it satisfactorily to her and not have it haunt her and just make her shut up about it and go to sleep and don't act so foolish.

I fixed Ursula's bathrobe over for David. It was always too baggy and never did fit either of them, but I chipped it into some sort of shape and now it is much better and more comfortable. I lengthened the sleeves about four inches. Overalls needed attention, as they always do, but we have enough to get along on.

Lynn Vars always teases me about worrying, but as I told him no one else is going to worry about it for me! He kids me about being strict with the children. David was getting into some water one day just after I told him not to so I packed him off into the car in an indignant temper. Vars laughed at me and said I wouldn't give five cents for a boy that didn't get into water. So I said that was true enough, but David wouldn't give five cents for a mother who didn't spank him for it. There I had him. They seem to think I'm a bit of a card, and I'll be glad to settle back into pleasant anonymity as your wife and let you do the business.

I have been thinking up some duties for you when you come back, and one of them is carrying this enormous son of yours into the bathroom and putting him on the John while he ba-s. He never wakes up and he's heavy and uncooperative as the devil. But awful soft and warm and sweet. I almost envy you the job, and I know you'll like doing it.

When we went outside we heard a kitten meowing furiously and I can't get past that and she [a friend] couldn't either. So we turned the car so the headlights shone on the right place, and there was a little grey and white kitten looking very much like Punker up a tree and couldn't get down. He was too far up for us to reach, but after some maneuvering, we fished him down with a forked stick under his tummy and just plain lifted him out of the tree. It worked swell. He loved Mary all over in the car when I took her home, but I couldn't persuade her that she needed a kitten in her life. So I brought it back again and left it outdoors. When Ursula came and got in bed with me this morning I told her about the little grey kitty up in the tree, and she loved it. I had often told her stories about lonely little grey kittens that finally after much trouble found a little girl named Ursula to love and play with. So here it was coming true. We were both pleased when it was still outside. The kitten is amazing. He runs and jumps in Ursula's lap if she sits down and is just the perfect kitten-answer to a little girl's prayer.

Ursula pulled another stunt on me. I was telling her about giving last night's party and she said "To who" and I corrected her "To whom" and she said "To WHO?" so I insisted "Ursula, to whom!" and she said, quite exasperated "'Well, who is whom?" That is why teachers get grey.

I told you about how David always says "Two of it." Well the following conversation took place recently. "David, how many hands have you?" "Two of it" "How many eyes?" "Two of it" and so on, and each time he felt very carefully first before he said it. "How many noses have you?" he felt his nose, but didn't know what to say. Give him credit for knowing it wasn't two. So I told him One. "How many mouths?" "One mouth." Then I figured I'd get him so I asked "How many hairs have you?" and he thought for a while and then said with finality "Pretty much" which really surprised me.

He is such an angel bundle these days, I hate to have you miss him. This morning I asked him how old he was and he said "Three and a half" promptly. That was because he had heard Ursula say it often. So I told him it was his birthday and he was two, so now if you ask him he says very clearly "I'm two."

Yesterday Ursula said something that was a fib and I told her she was telling a whopper. David commented in his own inimitable style "Jesus won't like it." I thought I'd pop a rib.

This morning I got a lot of housework accomplished and this afternoon and evening I devoted to mending. All the pants of the small fry fall down at the least excuse, so I had to replace and tighten rubber. Lots of overalls needed mending and I fixed for the kids to wear some that Dorothy had sent. One pair was a lovely pale bluish pink, and in good condition, except that the seat was worn completely out of it and I have been speculating as to whether Janey got the pants literally whipped off her, or whether she was sliding down cellar doors. The only thing I can see to do to them is to remake the whole back and cut them off for short pants for David.

Just after I returned from seeing Dean Whitford Ursula saw Gay and told her that "Peg and I just went up to tell Dean Whitford the war is all over and he is very glad." Gay was the right person to say such a cute thing to because Gay will tell everyone and then I won't have to be a proud mama.

Ursula says: "I love him, that's what I'd like to say to Honey. Bring him home safe and soon. I have a big bouquet for him." --- (consisting of timothy including roots).

David is a nice warm soft little bundle when he gets in bed dry with me, as he did this morning. He said "See, Mommy, shineson." What a whacky family!

Last night when I came home David was talking upstairs and I went up to see about him. He was wide awake and standing in the bathroom. He had had to go to the bathroom and got up, but then didn't get any attention, so he did it all over the floor and got his nightie soaking wet. He was very cheerful about it and so sweet and I loved the little coldwet guy so much, and he was being so patient and happy waiting for someone to come and take care of him and get him warm and comfortable again. I didn't blame the [baby sitter] girl at all because she didn't know and he had been very quiet about it all. He looked at the floor and said "See all that water? I did that." Sort of proud of himself.

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