I received this text yesterday from my friend’s phone:
“Mommy wuld u like to go to Gepolte with us? Luv ur dauter Morgan.”
After I died laughing, I called my lovely first born to see what location she thought she was saying. Chipotle. They were going to Chipotle for dinner and wondered if we wanted to join them. Yeah. I’m still laughing.
National spelling champ, she is not.
Usually take one last pass through town, Stop the car and touch the ground, Watch those streetlights swayin’ in the breeze, Decorated store fronts, Rusty old gas pumps, Try to fill my mind up, With somethin’ before I go, Picture postcard memories, You know they always make for good company. –Turning Home, David Nail
Picture Postcard Memories. Somehow that line has stuck with me for days. Just a silly line in a song, but I can’t get it out of my head. In a lot of ways, I think like that. In postcard memories. Have you ever seen the movie, Elizabethtown? The girl, played by Kirsten Dunst pretends to take photos of people, of places, just to remember. When I saw that movie, I realized I’ve done that my entire life. Although, I do it in my head, so as not to end up in a round padded room, being asked to find the corner.
I have been thinking a lot about this lately. When I’m having a bad day, I try to search through my mind for happier times, simple times, just memories that make me smile. I’d like to write some of these memories down. For me to remember, for my kids maybe one day. Just so I never forget. Thought I’d try a few today. Maybe I’ll keep doing it. We’ll see. You all know how I say I’m going to do something and then I never bring it up again. But it’s a thought.
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We told Morgan for months that she was going to have a baby brother. Each time we told a random person and that person said anything to her, she’d say: nopes, no baby bruder. We thought she was just having trouble adjusting. Turned out she was right. Bailey, despite the doctor being SO SURE she was a boy, was born a girl.
She was born near midnight and it was around lunch time the next day, when my mom brought Morgan in to meet her new baby sister. I can picture her little eyes sparkling and her screechy voice when she came in the room and saw me. HI MOMMY!!!! All decked out in a new outfit from my mom; red shorts and a red striped Dora shirt. She suddenly seemed like a full grown child, compared to her teeny tiny, new baby sister.
She got up on the bed with me and held her baby sister. This Ian, she asked, because we’d told her for months that would be her brothers name. No baby, it’s not, I said. This is…well she doesn’t have a name yet, but she’s your baby sister. No brother. Sorry honey. No Ian? Okay.
A little bit later, she got off the bed and started looking around. She looked under the bed, in the bathroom, heck, she even looked in my bag that was by the bed. When she walked out of the door, I called her back in the room and asked her what she was looking for. I looking for Ian mama. He’s lost. I will find hims for you.
She thought we’d misplaced him. Like he was a shoe or something. A missing item to find.
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The pool was shaped like a kidney bean. We were in Waikiki, Hawaii on the last day of our vacation. In the deep end there was a weird window, about two feet down. We’d been going down and making faces at it for a good hour. My step-mom was in the room with her eighth migraine of the week. My dad was somewhere.
I bet my brothers to moon the window. Told them, I’d pay them a dollar each. I could have offered them a piece of gum, they were easy marks. Eight year olds are easily buy-able. At ten, I could pay them next to nothing, or just dare them to do anything and they’d do it.
They each took a turn, going underwater and mooning the window. Seconds later my dad showed up. He rarely yelled, but he yelled loudly that day. Get out of the pool right now. Come with me.
Turns out, it was a bar. With a window. To the deep end of the pool. Weird, huh?
He made us apologize to a bar full of hysterically laughing people. The bartender gave us each a Shirley temple. Even added extra cherries. Little tiny boy butts are nothing. I’ve got kids at home. You have no idea the things I see, he told my dad. Whoever thought of putting this window in, was smokin something crazy.
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Our last night in Las Vegas. We’d been there for three days. Three fun filled, easy days. Neither of us really wanted to go back to the hotel. It was admitting the end of our trip.
Sitting at the Bellagio. In a back hallway, in comfy chairs, eating gelato for an hour and a half. Talking about nothing and everything. Being shocked that we couldn’t hear a single sound, except the few other people doing the same thing. We could have been anywhere. In fact, from the second we went into that hotel, until we left it, we never heard a casino. It was a perfect end, to a perfect trip.
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I was fourteen. Summer. Camping. Half Moon Bay. I got up at dawn to go to the bathroom. It was cold and foggy and the sun hadn’t even considered coming out yet. I knew I couldn’t get back in the pop-up trailer without waking everyone else up, so I decided to go on a walk. I walked and then sat and watched the fog roll off the ocean. Listened to the waves crash. Peace. I felt more at peace in that moment that I had in years. I sat there alone and watched the sun come up. Then I walked back to the camper, where no one had even gotten up yet.
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Morgan being held by my Grandpa on his 80th birthday. She was only six days old. Perfection she was, full of that newborn awesomness. I can picture everything he wore that day, her too. If I think hard enough, I can even smell them both. I ignored his words that he might not be strong enough to hold her and placed her in his arms. He was pale and shaky, one of the last few times I’d see him standing and walking around. She’s barely six pounds Grandpa, I said. She won’t break. I watched him take a finger and gently run it on her nose, watched him kiss her head. Angel kisses, he whispered. What, I asked him? Those red strawberry marks on her eyelids. Oh those will go away in a few weeks, I said. Or that’s what her doctor said.
Angel kisses, he repeated. This child was kissed by angels.
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I can’t live these memories a second time. I wish I could, but it’s just not possible. But the stories in my head? Are something I’ll never forget.
I should have known better. We should have known better. How many times does one couple need to learn this lesson? Wasn’t once enough?
We’ll file this post under: Full Disclosure.
Last night…I can’t believe I’m doing this again. Last night we got caught doing the nasty knocking boots getting a bit frisky by Bailey. Some of you may remember the “wrestling” post, back when Morgan was about four and a half? Either way. We got caught again.
We were um…playing on the couch, when we heard this little voice.
Mama, my heart hurts.**
Logan, my very lovely husband, is a quick thinker. He says, honey go in the bathroom and find your inhaler and Mama will be in there in one second.
So I get up, put some clothes back on and go in the bathroom to help my child breath better. She uses her inhaler as she leans against me. We wait for a few minutes and she does it again. Then she says, Mommy, what were you and Daddy doing?
I think to myself for a second and say the first thing that comes to mind, oh we were playing doctor. Oh she says, ok then. Who was the doctor? Oh, um, well, my um….Daddy was. Ok, mama, my heart is better, goodnight. My heart at this point; about to explode. She patters down the hall, up the stairs and goes back to bed.
Needless to say, we moved our game of doctor upstairs. Behind locked doors.
I was not looking forward to this morning. I was hoping she’d not remember. It would be better that way. Maybe we should tell her she was sleepwalking, Logan had said. Took awhile before she brought it up. I was driving up to the school and she said to Morgan, Mommy and Daddy play doctor after we go to bed. Morgan, god love her, just laughed and laughed, but didn’t say a word. We walked Bailey to preschool and as we walked to her class room, she leans into me and whispers, Mommy, you were having S.E.X., (she spelled it, all loud and crap, like I couldn’t hear her) right?
I said the only thing I could, baby, do you really want to know? Ew, no she says. I never want to know that. Then don’t ask. But please, keep it to yourself okay? Sure, but ewwwww mommy. Then she runs off, laughing to herself.
My cheeks are red just typing this. But you know, this is a full disclosure blog. Aren’t you glad you stopped by this morning?
Once for each kid, that’s not horrible right? We can try better for the boy, to not scar him for life or send him to therapy before he’s five. But you know, sometimes you temporarily forget there are children in the house. At least until you hear that little voice say, mama or daddy. Kill joy.
We can’t be the only ones, can we?
**Bailey is an asthmatic. When her asthma is acting up, she says her heart hurts. It’s just how she explains it.
My first look: Two bikers, one woman and one man leaving the Costco parking lot at the same time as me. Awesome bikes, leather jackets, boots; the whole get-up. Looking freaking bad ass.
Second glance: A container of Twizzlers strapped on the back of the mans bike. Box of CornNuts strapped to the back of hers.
Half way up the street I see him take something out of her hand and set it in his lap. It’s a box of the homemade Christmas cards that I’d just walked by.
The whole thing made my day. Classic. Seriously.
Issa is the mother to three kids: Morgan, Bailey, and Harrison. Comment Policy: Don’t be rude to me or my readers. If you do, I WILL delete you. (It is, after all, MY blog)
