Mac Stories #2

When Mac was in the second grade he used the word plethora. Correctly. His teacher told me she had to look it up. (That worried me on a whole different level, by the way). He's always been such a smartie pants.

Around the time Mac was 5 or 6, we had Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house. My grandparents- the ultra conservative ones that I've referred to as The Shrews- were present. For some reason, in the middle of dinner- and I swear to this day my brother put Mac up to it- Mac started singing. My grandmother asked what he was singing and in a loud clear voice he repeated this much of the song "there's a skeeter on my peter, whack it off!" Silence followed. Then my brother and my Sam of the time were in hysterical tears, the grandparents were appalled and scolding me, my dad was trying to not crack up laughing because my mom would kill him, my mother and I were mortified, and Mac just kept on eating sweet potatoes, oblivious to it all.

When Mac was around 4 or 5 years old, my mother had beautiful African Violets that she raised. They were in pots in the house. If you aren't familiar with these flowers, I should let you know they are REALLY hard to grow. They're a finicky flowers, hard to nurture and fickle, too. She worked hard with these and seemed to have a knack for them. Now, Mac was raised to "know better" about things and he was also told the word "no" so he knew not to touch certain things, house plants being one. But for reasons unknown to this day, Mac didn't like the flowers. None of us knows why and of course he doesn't remember. He would purposely dump those flowers on the rug. He would up end the pots, splat on the carpet. My mom would get so pissed and threatened to even spank him but that didn't cure it. That child managed to toss 'em on the floor so many times that he killed them all. And she could never get African Violets to grow for her again, after that. Curious....

When Mac was three years old, my parents decided to plant a tree in the back yard. Mac decided to "help." He took his little shovel outside and watched Daddy-O and my brother dig a hole to put the tree in. They made a pile of dirt. Mac would take shovels full of the dirt and throw it back in the hole. Evey scoop they threw out, a half a scoop went back in. Finally my brother got him going int he right direction with it- dirt OUT of the hole. Then Mac eyeballed the hole and decided it was just his right size so he plopped his butt in it. He would move. The tree was big enough it took Daddy-O and Bro both to lift it, so they would set the tree down, take Mac out of the hole, set him down and pick up the tree. By the time the tree got picked up again, Mac was back in the hole. After 6 or 7 times of this, Mac got set inside of his tree swing until the tree was planted.

Mac's mom,
Maggie