The Missing Years

A few years ago I suffered from Amnesia and various parts of my memory are still missing to this day. I found that photos and others' stories have helped rekindle my memories but sometimes they seem gone permanently. In total I believed I'd lost three years, and this past month I realized I really had, and maybe more.

I know when I woke up from the hospital in 2002, that I did not remember getting married (in 2001), and then I realized when I went back to work that I was rhyming off students names from my first year of teaching (98/99). I had forgotten at least two years worth of teaching BUT I could teach all the material. The headmaster sat at the back of the room while I taught my lesson to a bunch of OAC strangers, and verified I knew my stuff. (Later the students told me I taught it a few times since my short-term memory was bad also).

Anyway, while making these anniversary cakes all month, I got to thinking about my parents' anniversary and wondered when I needed to plan for the next big year. If I am 35...then they'd be married 37 years. So we should have celebrated at least their 25th, right? Nope, I didn't think so. I felt guilty all day and when I finally saw mom for Thanksgiving, I asked her.

She looked at me with a blank face, and then she blinked. "Oh, you threw us a party all right, and gave a speech and everything." Quite eloquently, apparently, and I still don't remember.

So that was Sept. 1998. And I hadn't even met Mr. Man yet.

Two Fuzzy Moments

Begonia by the Shed:

I was supposed to be going to the store for eggs and milk, but instead I was spying on my contractor as he was "tidying" the backyard. I glanced behind him and saw two spots of orangey-pink falling out of a broken flower pot, hanging (or should I say, dangling) from our tool shed. I called from my hiding place and asked Mr. C if he could see if that indeed was a flower. And it was!

Immediately I rescued it, thinking "I'm probably NOT rescuing it by even going near it" and realized it was my mother's day flowers I got from my mother back in the spring. I had had them for about two nights when I forgot to bring them in and they were killed by frost bite. I had left them for dead.

I found it very romantic that they have survived and come back during the fall, in a broken flower pot, attached to the most hideous looking shed on our street (well, except maybe the house with all the dogs...). It made me feel fuzzy inside.

Kid #2 and a Toonie:

The second thing that cheered me up today was going to a country store on my way home from shopping for kitchen sinks. I have not gone to that store for many months, and forgot that as soon as you step out of your car you are surrounded by that wonderful bakery, I-did-not-bake-this, smell. Smiles all around. My four-year-old daughter, who could hardly contain herself, dragged me around the bakery to find what she could afford with her allowance. Armed with coins in hand, she eventually chose a package of two large butter tarts, bought them with her own money, and gave the girl a big THANKS, as she ran to the van. I watched her eat those huge treats through the rearview mirror wondering how I'd be paying later for all of this sugary goodness. But she was in heaven.

How different she is from her older brother who spent his allowance on a whoopie cushion last week....

An Introduction:

For any of you who happen upon this blog, you will see it is really about nothing. Mostly about "stuff". Things I hate, things that are great, things that make me smile or things that just went really bad. I am a mom, and even though I hate the mom blog thing, kids do tend to do great things so I may mention kid #1 or kid#2. And there is The Man, who swoops in once in awhile to make his presence known, and to save the day often. I believe it is the author of Under the Duvet, who calls her husband, Himself. I love that. So I will call mine: The Man. But I am free to change my mind. This is my blog.

I remember being in grade 2 and we made up these books (the pages were laminated and everything!!) about all the things that were great about us. I remember I had my left hand print on one page stating I was left handed, and all of these great things that were important to a grade 2 student. But mom eventually threw it out. Ah, the inability to see quality art! And now I try and toss out random paintings from my kids and cringe as they open the lid off the recycling compartment and gasp in horror.

I still have my laminated book of poetry from grade 4 secretly stashed away. Beautiful stuff, really. Maybe I'll post it someday (oh, another cringe)!

To all those primary teachers who laminate children's work and make them feel oh so important:

Thank You,

Erin