"Muffy", The Beginnings

When I was a newborn in the hospital, I was exposed to a staph infection in the hospital when I was born and became very sick. So I had to spend the first chapter of my life back in the hospital. Huge boils and eczema covered my whole body---I looked more like a baby alligator than a baby human, and the nuns who took care of me in the hospital told my parents that a grown man would be screaming in pain if he had the same condition. So I was a hard baby to take care of, even when I was finally well enough to go home again.

My Mom and Dad had to be very careful that I only ate certain things that were safe for me. When
they would go for walks to get ice cream, they would have to hide their cones behind their backs whenever I turned around in the stroller to check on them. No wonder that it's a stretch for me to share ice cream now---I had to wait so long to get my first lick, and I figured everybody was invited to that party except me!!

I don't know if that was the reason I was a bald baby or not, but Goldilocks I was not at the beginning. To cover my baldness, my parents would have me wear lots of hats and scarves. Because I so often had a babushka on my head, my very first nickname was “Babushka Pete”. Not exactly flattering, huh? But appropos for the little Bohemian, I guess. At some point they must have wanted something that identified me as female, so I was re-dubbed “Mitzi”. Definitely an improvement. But soon a cat with that same moniker moved into the very neighborhood, and it was passe for me. So we moved on to “Muffi” for some obscure reason that's not part of the legend anymore. But those are the humble beginnings of Grandma Muffin....