The Incredible Shrinking New Mom

I don't know how much weight my mother gained while she was pregnant with me but as I mentioned, I was a very healthy 9 pounds 13-1/2 ounces at birth.  Will you take a look at her just ONE  MONTH after I popped out!  We were visiting friends, apparently to show off the World's Most Beautiful Baby.  Check out the last word in portable bassinets.  Handles AND retractable legs.  This thing was so well constructed, I could've taken a trip down the Nile and never popped a leak!

Here we are a week later at home and in Dad's Comfy Chair.  This chair pretty much shows that my parents were not too worried about impressing anyone with their FABulous furniture.  I think it had something to do with the fact that Dad was a newly-hired junior salesman at U.S. Pipe & Foundry, his first and ONLY JOB after graduating from college.  He finally retired when he was well into his 70's--he had been there so long and knew so much that (1) they wouldn't let him retire, and (2) he didn't want to, anyway.

After WWII, there was a  housing shortage in major urban areas.  My parents lived outside of Chicago in a suburb called Park Forest with a bunch of other young families.  They lived in these apartments just long enough to save enough money to move, for back in those days, people didn't intend for either themselves or their descendants to remain in the same housing projects.  Dad was transferred to Los Angeles when I was four and we moved to the magical land of Southern California.  BTW--check out those awesome cars, and note that Mom, who was 23, is actually wearing little white socks with that skirt!  Cute.

I think I may have just dirtied my diaper judging from the look on Dad's face.  He doesn't appear to be at ALL happy about this and I'm none too pleased, either.  On the other hand, my Grandpa (Dad's father) thinks this is just hilarious.

Oh, these trips down Memory Lane . . .