in her eyes

Childhood recollections and my mother are intertwined. It would be hard to know which memory is the earliest. I remember squeaking in protest as she dried me after a bath. Those line dried towels were always abit rough. She teasingly scolded me not to be a mamby pamby.
And I can still hear her shriek when she discovered the little boy next door and I merrily shoveling brown sugar and oatmeal into our sand pail and all over the counter and floor.
When my sister and I had a scrap, and I bit her on the arm, my mother called us heathens and did her best to prune that type of behaviour by spanking me on the spot. I was saved by the thickness of my winter coat.
The overriding memory though, when I think back to early childhood is one of security and love. She was always there, often in the kitchen, wearing her soft cotton house dress, a welcome smile in her eyes.