How many plastic spider rings does it take to raise a child from toddler to teenager? In our case, 500.
I invested in a whopping bag of plastic spider rings, when my oldest son was about three. Five hundred of them. “These will come in handy to top cupcakes, to add to goody bags, and to play jokes on people,” I had thought. Whoa! So many fun times ahead!
Well. My oldest son just turned 14 years old this week. When it was time to decorate his cake, I rummaged through the bin where I keep cupcake papers, food coloring, sprinkles, birthday candles, and plastic spider rings.
There was only one spider ring left. What?!
We had finally exhausted our supply. I had baked an abundance of cupcakes over the years to deliver to school functions, added the rings to birthday goody bags, and distributed them at Halloween.
The rings marked milestones in my son’s life. They took him from toddler to teen. And now, the spiders are gone.
But the other day, as my son stood there in the kitchen–standing 6 ft. 1 in. tall–he tasted his mud pie birthday cake and giddily shrieked, “This is your best cake yet, Mom!”
His enthusiasm and kindness are reminders that despite age (and height), he is still the same on the inside.
I took a weekly picture of my puppy and daughter for an entire year, to capture the moments and to watch how much they changed in one year’s time. He grew a little faster than she did.
Looking through these photos bring back vivid memories for our family. Seasons filled with laughter and silliness, frustrations and mess, teaching and energy, cuddling and love.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, well, I now have a terabyte hard drive and a digital picture frame. Together, they can hold tens of thousands of pictures.
Do the math.
My husband gave me these for Christmas. Best. Presents. Ever.
He knows I love to be surrounded by pictures of my family…almost more than my actual family (ha)!
My hard drive now stores back-ups of my family’s photos. I think digital photos are a great invention, don’t you? I only have two photo albums from my childhood.
I uploaded a bunch (oh, about 2,000) photos onto my magic picture frame. And now we can glance over anytime to view:
Birthday grins
Children petting bunnies
Carving pumpkins
Family camping trips
Bathtub babies
Me holding babies
Sunburned faces
Picking peaches
New Monopoly winners crowned
Soccer games
Puppies growing
Children playing dress up
Jumping into pools
Windy hair at beaches
Bad haircuts
Hugs and kisses and high fives
Building snowmen
First days of school
Toothless grins
Climbing trees
Growing children
Years and years of memories. My magic picture frame gives us the chance to reminisce and smile and laugh and recall.
My teen son and I visited my mother in California. While there, I wanted to swing by my childhood home to check it out. For old times’ sake. My mother doesn’t live there anymore.
We drove down the quiet, tree-lined street. Everything was still the same, yet so different. The small, tidy homes with the small, tidy yards. Family homes.
My childhood home was barely recognizable. The new owners had doubled its size by adding a second story. What was wrong with my comfy, two-bedroom home? It was just perfect for my mother and me. Or a hobbit.
The palm tree in the front yard was gone. The tree had helped mark our tucked-in house. “When you see the palm tree? That’s my house.”
The palm tree was also a sign that we lived in California, welcoming guests from the Midwest–my Grandmother–who would ooh and ah at our weather and tropical plantings.
I lived in that home from ages 9 to 18.
It was a neighborhood of young families and old people.
The neighbor kids and I ran amuck. Racing throuh neighbors’ yards, playing Nerf football in the street, rollerskating, hiding-and-seeking at night.
It was a safe town, nestled, protected. It was a town where you let your children walk to the 7-Eleven to buy Slurpees. It was a town where kids could trick-or-treat in packs, without their parents’ hovering.
My street looked the same. And I’ve heard the neighborhood and town are still safe. There were Christmas lights around the windows, trikes in the front yards.
But the old people I knew, are long gone. And the parents I knew, are now old. The then children now have their own families. And have moved on. Everything has changed.
Visiting my old street made me sad. I am no longer part of that neighborhood. But the neighborhood is part of me. Like the deep roots of my palm tree, most of my childhood is rooted there.
Dog peeing on the carpet. Algebra homework. Always dieting. Sibling rivalry. Dishwasher clogged. Shuttling children to sports. Grocery shopping.
Everyone needs to be fed. Everything needs to be cleaned. Someone always needs something. Something is always breaking.
But that’s life. That’s my life.
Yet, in our loud and crazy family life, I am adding in a few simple things to help me slow down and enjoy and keep my sanity.
Sharing a pomegranate. Time intensive, these fruits force you to slow down and enjoy.
A board game with the family. This weekend, it was Sorry.
Painting my toenails sparkly red. Even though my toes are hidden under socks and tights for the next eight months.
A bowl of walnuts in their shells and a nutcracker. Again, cracking open nuts is time intensive, forcing you to slow down.
Braiding Barbie’s hair with my daughter.
Walking through the leaves on a Fall afternoon.
I am learning that simple (memorable) things need to be prioritized into a family’s busy day. Because children and mates need to be cared for and fed and loved. Clothes will always need washing. Groceries always run out. There will always be homework to do and bills to pay. Dogs sometimes pee on the carpet.
It’s always something. How about making it something simple?
If the journey is half the fun, then childhood road trips sitting alongside my sister were a hoot.
Every Summer, we would journey in the family wagon hundreds of miles to see America at its finest: Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore, Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, Yellowstone National Park. If it had anything to do with water falls, red rocks, forests, suspension bridges, I’ve been there.
My Dad at the wheel. My Stepmother navigating. My sister and me in the back seat, with no seat belts. No seat belts meant freedom to sprawl. Only an imaginary line down the middle to “separate” us.
Do. Not. Cross. The. Line.
This was decades before iPods and Nintendo DSs. Dude. This was before the Sony Walkman. Dude! My Dad’s car had an 8-track tape. We’d listen to Ray Conniff’s Bad, Bad Leroy Brown. We’d even sing along. Because that sucker would loop.
There was nothing to do. For hours. Or was there?
We’d play the alphabet license plate game. But when there are no cars for one hundred miles, the game goes a little slow.
Are we there yet? No.
When will we get there? We’ll get there when we get there.
I would look into the rearview mirror and check out my face. Any new pimples?
Dang. What to do now?
Rock, paper, scissors. We’d play it over and over and over. Being seven years older than my sister meant I knew how to change my rock to a scissors at the last minute, for the win.
Are we there yet? No.
When will we get there? We’ll get there when we get there.
Then finally, time for lunch. We’d pull over at a rest stop and my Stepmother would spread out a feast on a picnic table. Vienna sausages! Pringles! Spray cheese! Wafer cookies with icing! Fruit cocktail! The kind with the awesome cherries pieces and heavy syrup.
Then it would be time to distribute the HANDI WIPES.
You know those wipes that come in little packets? The kind that are folded in a little square, that smell like alcohol? The kind you get after eating fried chicken?
Our fun was unfolding those suckers into a big square. And check this out. Rolling down the window and letting the hot Summer air dry them out. I mean, this could stretch out five minutes. At least. Then when the handy wipes were all dry, you could stick out your hand and “hand surf” through the air current until our Dad yelled, “The air conditioner is on! Roll up the windows. You’re letting the cold air out.”
We’d get excited when my Dad would stop at a gas station to fill up. We’d beg for a quarter. I’d buy a Hershey bar. My sister would buy something fruity and sour and hard. Something that she knew would last a long time. Like Gobstoppers.
I’d gobble mine up in five seconds. And her candy outlasted mine. Always. Dang her.
Then she would nap. And I’d have no one to chat with and bicker with and play with for a few hours. Silence. Except for Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown.
I’d stare out the window. How many more miles until the next rest stop? I had to pee. How many until Mesa Verde?
Are we there yet? No.
When will we get there? We’ll get there when we get there.
By evening, after driving all day, we’d arrive at our Best Western. Always with crisp white sheets. Tiny, rectangular soaps. And a swimming pool. A glorious pool! Finally, something to DO!
The funny thing is, I don’t really remember the monuments, the sights, or the National parks that much. Faded pictures in a musty old photo album remind me that I’ve been to all the places.
Instead, what I remember is the endless driving, sitting alongside my sister. The idleness and how we’d try to pass the time. Ah, the simplicity of childhood.
And I kinda wish I could sit in the backseat with my sister now, to talk. Laugh. Bicker. And play rock, paper, scissors. But she lives an ocean away.
Being an adult is busy and complicated. I haven’t sat idly in the backseat of a car with nothing to do except air out our handy wipes….well, since childhood.
Being the youngest grandchild gave me pampering privileges.
My grandfather, with his Einsteinish hair–crimped, like white cotton candy–would sit in his La-Z-Boy chair, with the cracked seat cushions, letting me pet the whiteness. But only for a few minutes. Too much giggling.
He would let me sit on the armrest while he did his crossword puzzle in the daily newspaper. I loved how he would straighten the newspaper out just so—crackle–and fold it back into quarters, and then into eighths. A perfect rectangle. He was always with pencil. If not in his hand, then one tucked behind his fluff. The heavy black Webster dictionary was by his side. He would look up words as he read and pontificated. And he would put a check mark by the words he looked up with his pencil. Proof that he had been there. Over the years as I would flip through the wonton-thin pages of the dictionary, I was amazed at how many words had been studied.
As I sat by his side, balancing on the armrest, I was encouraged to watch, but not talk too much. He liked my company but he didn’t like distraction. Except for the hefty bowls of Butter Brickle ice cream my grandmother would bring us. The brown sugar toffee crystals would dissolve on my tongue and I’d let the ice cream pool into liquid—savoring and prolonging the moments.
I would sprawl out on the orange-gold shag carpet that smelled a little wooly, a little doggy. I’d spread pillows onto the floor, to make a nest.
His soft pencil scribbles usually lulled me into a nap.
Sometimes, special memories don’t hit you until it’s too late.
I want to go back to that living room on White Oak to hear the newspaper crinkling, smell the carpet, taste the toffee, and fall asleep in my special nest, pampered in the love of my grandparents.
I energetically mother three children: 14, 10, and 8, am married to my college sweetheart, and have two dogs. My life is full of laughs. eye rolls, love, and laundry. I'm friendly and genuine and blog about my bumbling life.
