The days following New Year’s Day were COLD. Like highs in the 20s cold. And while we’re used to some cold snaps here and there, it stayed well below what our tolerance is for winter weather here in the South.
The kids were also still home from school for the holiday break and the artic-like temps made our daily outings or playing outside come to a standstill for a few days. One night I happened to comment that I wasn’t sure what we would do the following day and Thomas was quick with a reply. “I know what you can do. You can go through that box of things that Tootsie sent.”
“That box of things” had been sitting in our garage for a few months waiting to be opened and sorted through. It arrived here during one of my parents’ visits and housed a collection of random things along with some keepsakes that had been collected over my childhood. Occasionally, I would look over at it and think “Soon.”
The following day we did just what Thomas suggested. I wasn’t that surprised that the sorting was quite the undertaking. I had three little helpers that were excited to pull out things faster than I could keep up with them. There was a garbage pile, a keep pile, a shred pile, etc., etc. And the garbage pile was the largest, go figure.
See, I’m not the most sentimental. To give me a box filled to the brim of unorganized stuff that’s been collected over years to go through sends my Type-A personality into overdrive. Something had to really stand out if it wanted to be kept. I prefer things neat and tidy with no clutter. Given the fact that there was no internet or a dozen or so online platforms to give you tips and ideas for everything you can imagine like there is now, I can’t fault my mom for the way she kept things over the years.
Now, though, I’m fortunate to be putting together these organization boxes for my own kids and hopefully they’ll be a little less overwhelmed when I pass them on to them one day. Let’s hope!
One of the most cherished things I found was a journal from 1982, the year I was born. It truly is a reminder of how important it is to write things down, much the same reason we’ve started writing on this little blog. My mom’s handwriting and notes from the first few months of my life were so touching, almost as if you could feel her emotion jumping off the pages. It’s funny how we see our parents as so far removed from the daily events of raising small children. And yet they did all the same things we’re doing now. They dealt with teething babies, putting nurseries together, and late nights the same as we’re doing now.
Funny enough there were some things I could also see in my own children in things she had written that were similar to myself. (JL is not a fan of laying still for a diaper change and hasn’t been since day one.)
Another sweet thing I came across was this little blurb I wrote about a very special bear named Rolo. When my parents were going through things the last time they moved they came across it in the attic. Arthur had just turned one and we thought we’d give it to him and see how he liked him. He loved him from the start and still sleeps with him to this day.
While it was fun to rummage through a mountain of memories, I mostly hung onto lots of writing projects and things that had extra special value. There’s no need to keep every single report card of my grade school years at this point I’m pretty sure. However, it was neat to look at my Kindergarten report card and see how it compared to the things Thomas did last year. And speaking of Kindergarten, I came across this picture from my class Christmas party and my sweet teacher, Mrs. Miller. Everyone always remembers their Kindergarten teacher. Am I right?? Right!
