Dust, Sneeze and Say Cheese Moments that Arose from the Basement
Cleaning the basement storage after more than a decade of accumulation of stuff, I felt like an archeologist excavating through the layers of dust to find artifacts that took us back to yesteryear. Stuff in this 16' & 14' area had gotten to the point that the path to navigate from shelf-to-shelf was only wide enough for our small, canine family member to do a full pass through.
Box-by-box we removed the container, the lid and the contents inside. In some cases I validated the treasured find, and in others I looked at my husband and said what were we thinking? First, let me say, I am typically not a sentimental saver; some of my friends have kept everything from the first baby outfit to the first pair of walking shoes. There is nothing wrong with that; it’s just not the way I roll.
Believe me, I had plenty of other stuff, including my main crutch, comfort item and go-to-gift for years from family members. I love pictures of the family! (And I have cases of photo albums to prove it!) Now that everything is digital, it's just a matter of getting a bigger external hard drive. Back when child Number 1 was born, however, it was paper photos, photo albums and frames all over the house.
At the time, we did not live near relatives; therefore every month we went to the JC Penney or Sears photo studio to take pictures and track her progress. Of course, then we ordered the biggest photo package we could afford and physically mailed paper pictures to relatives, and framed the 8X10’s of the various poses to display; it was hard to choose just one.
To be fair, the photo studio visits got less frequent with children number 2, 3 and 4, but it seems I doubled and maybe even tripled my framing of photos to display in the house when these precious ones made us a family of six. Well, at least it seemed that way after removing the photos from the frames – ranging from wallet size to 11 x 14 -- and loading an entire van full of photo frames to donate. (I am not exaggerating!)
I share a few picture moments here to remind myself and share with others that time does go fast. As we now manage the issues related to being parents of young adults and teenagers, the photos -- including this one (the baby is now in her 20s) -- are a good reminder of how far we have come, from then to now and it makes us smile.
We are surviving the chaos of family. We are not done, not by a long shot. We are doing OK, and you and your kids will be OK too. It is sometimes hard to see that when we are in the moment and our 17-year-old won’t take out the trash after being asked three, four or even five times; or a child wants to get another tattoo; or the dog has pooped on the carpet since the youngest child forgot to let it outside.
Ahhhhhh…this too shall pass, and it will all be OK! No picture of the dog poop needed.
