Stirring the Pot of Memories

I think it's fascinating that everything we experience in life is stored in our memories. Everything we touch, everything we smell, everything we laugh about and cry about and love. Everything we see and everything we do. Everything we scoff about and rave about and joke about and feel. Every experience tucked away into the folds of our minds to recall or to forget. I think it's fascinating because, every once in a while, something happens in my life that pulls a forgotten memory to the present. And, depending on the memory, it is there once again for me to think about, smile about, laugh about, cry about, or try to forget once more.

Last night, after tucking my kids into bed, I heard them laughing and playing for about an hour before all was silent. When I went in to check on them before going to bed myself, I saw this beautiful picture that poured in some very welcome nighttime memories from about 22 years ago when I was McKenzie's age, and my sister, Michelle, was just a little older than Carson. We shared a room then, too, and every night we'd play 'quietly' so our parents wouldn't know we were awake. My favorite game was lovingly termed 'sandwich' - where we'd throw all pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals on each other to make ourselves into ... well ... sandwiches. When we'd had enough sandwiches, we'd sneak out of the room and sit in the loft to watch my parents - oh, we were sneaky! We never could figure out how they knew we were sitting there without even turning their heads. They would just very calmly and sternly say, "Lindseeeee, Micheeeeeelle, get back in bed." One night, there was a spider crawling up the wall at the head of my bed. I freaked out, but Michelle said (in her adorable lisp), "Don't wuhwey Winsey, I'w be bwave!" and smashed that spider into the wall using her bare hand! Oh, but we were quiet. It's pretty easy to be quiet while you're ripping off all your bedding and throwing it on each other, opening the door and sneaking into the loft area, and hitting the walls. Funny though, my parents always seemed to find out somehow...

I know we must have been quieter than my kids are now - surely the floorboards didn't rattle quite so loudly when we jumped off of our beds. Surely the walls were thicker when we were giggling. Surely the door we opened was perfectly squeakless. Surely we breathed a little quieter while we were spying on our parents. And we surely didn't whisper when we were only feet away from our parents ears!

I'm so glad I let them play last night instead of breaking up the party. They fell asleep at a reasonable time anyway, and hopefully they'll look back on this time in their lives with as much fondness as I do on my own early life. Thanks Mom and Dad, for letting us kids be kids.

I LOVE YOU MICHELLE!!!