soon after my parents went to bed, the contractions started and got closer and closer together.
My dad and mom timed contractions and decided to take her in. When they arrived at the hospital, my moms doctor told my dad it would be several more hours and my dad might as well go home and get some sleep. He left and returned home. When he got back, the doctor had called telling him to get back to the hospital. He drove crazy fast and had to cross a lift bridge. The bridge got stuck Nd all the cars had to back down the bridge. It took hours.
When he finally made it back to the hospital, I had arrived. They wanted to amd me Stephanie or Melissa. When he held me, he decided my name was "Jerlyn" named after him, Gerald and his beloved sister, Carolyn.
My first months of life were spent with my grandpRents, Daddy Bud and Gammr Simonton. Although my parents hD been told I was a boy the entire time, he insisted I was a girl. I spent hours on his big tummy sleeping which scared my mom. He died only a few months after my birth stating his mission in life was complete knowing we now had a connection.
I spent the first two years of my life at BYU with my parents finishing school. There I met my first life,one friend, Darce Jones, as we had the same babysitter. I still love and adore Darce.
I would cry hard when I had to get in my snow clothes. I hated cold then and now.
I could often be heard saying bees bite as I hated the cold.
Soon as my dad graduated from BYU, following my moms graduation, my dad accepted a job in Florida and we moved to live by his parents. My love of all things Disney started when we moved into Peter Pan Place. I mean what kid could grow up living on a street named after Peter Pan that could actually grow up?! I think part of me still is connected to that. I so enjoy fun and laughter, games and joy and believe life is better mixed with a healthy dose of childlike faith and an overwhelming joy for life.
I spent the first years there surrounded by my dads family and held in love. While my mom taught school, my two aunts watched me. They loved me as I was their first niece and the only granddaughter after a Long line of boys. My love of little children began here at only a year old when I uttered my first sentence, "rock by baby". I wanted to be a mom as long as I can rememeber. I spent hours holding and rocking my baby dolls, singing to them and wrapping them in blankets. My love of children and babies was deep innate in me. As much as I breathe and am, I love babies and children.
Josh was born while we lived in Florida. Oh boy, I dressed him up, invited him to tea parties and played clowns with him and tinker toys and spent years hanging with him.
One of my favorite memories with josh is he was bugging or annoying me and my friends. So I let the bunnies out of their cage and locked josh in. Finally. Freedom with friends.
My moms dad had a heart attack so my parents moved to arizona to help them out. Whenever moved back.
At five years old, the play My Turn on Earth came out. I listened to that tape over and over. Then Saturday's warriors. And those were my favorites. I memorized them and from them learned about the plan of salvation, our purpose here and what we are supposed to do. Anxious to share my newly found knowledge, I sat down with the tapes and began teaching each of my friends. My friends parents were so concerned with the vast knowledge their children had come home with that they enrolled their children in catholic school scared I had so much know,edge about religion and their children's knowledge was now coming from me. I don't remember all I taught, but I do remember at the tender young age knowing I was a daughter of God, God knew me and that I lived before I came here, I had work to do here and that there was life after death. My teaching of these truths continued with more neighbors and people I came in contact with at schools, home or out and about.
School was scary for me. It was loud and overwhelming. Although I made fantastic grades, I begged my mom to home school me.
Jake came along when I was almost six. I broke my moms heart because Jake wanted to take bottles from me and eventually called me "ma-am" before he called my mom that. It broke her heart. One day she watched to see why Jake would take the bottles I gave him and chuck the ones she gave him. As she watched me make his next bottle she laughed as I added chocolate syrup to his bottles. No wonder he liked mine better. Oh and keeping him from crying, I dipped his pacifier in honey. And the calling me momma. Well, I taught him that cookies were "mama". So he saw me and said mama, I'd sneak him a cookie. I just knew I wanted to be his mom. I would sneak in and get Jake out of his crib and put him in bed with me. To help my mom get sleep. Or I wanted him. My parents had to have jake and then Jd and Jodi sleep in drawers as they were terrified I would drop them. But I loved them.
