Okay, maybe I should cut Audrey (my mother) some slack. Back in 1958-59 they didn't know that Breast feeding was much better for babies than formula. But when she told me how happy she was that at such an early age I was able to hold my own bottle (i.e., she was freed of the burden of actually holding her baby while he drank his formula) alarms went off in my head. I was what she called a 'honeymoon baby' which is I guess a nice term for 'unexpected pregnancy.'

From my young childhood (pre-divorce, like 6-10) I remember our babysitter Shelley paying more attention to my sister Tammy and me than our parents did. Tammy and I would play by ourselves and Shelley would check on us to make sure we were okay. I remember thinking that seemed strange, as if our own parents didn't do that. Maybe she was just a very responsible sitter.

And here I am with a tested IQ between 147 and 155. But I think we know that smarts does not = happy; often quite the opposite.

Sometimes I wonder how much goes back to the fact that I had been in kindergarten 6 weeks when we moved from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania, and there was some age change, where I should be in 1st grade. So I took all these tests (which Audrey said, casually, that 'I cried all the way through;' HELLO) that I passed, so after 6 weeks of Kindergarten I was stuck in 1st grade. Smart but socially way behind. No one thought that it might be better for me to go back into K and learn some basic social skills. Or maybe I'm just making excuses.