Clothes and Memories

I'm going through old Notes I shared on my personal Facebook page in the past and they are making me smile, laugh and cry to think how fast B is growing up.  Some of my favorites I am going to be reposting here because they tell you more about how crazy we and our life really are.  :o)  I hope you enjoy reading them as much I did living them.


Originally posted November 15, 2008

Last week, I borrowed 2 articles of clothing from my 6 year old son, B - socks and long johns bottoms. We were headed out to church and I discovered that I had no clean socks. There is no way I could wear the hubs' socks, so I decided to try B's. I was pleasantly surprised to find they fit me, but it is one more sign that my baby is growing up fast. Then on Monday or Tuesday it was chilly and I wanted an extra layer under my jeans before I walked to B's school to pick him up. I only have long john shirts, but I thought about the socks and decided to try on a pair of B's long john bottoms. Crazy, right? Well, they FIT!! Now, they were too short, of course, stopping below my knees, but still, THEY FIT!!! Can I just tell you what a perverse ego boost I got from that? That I could wear the long john bottoms of a 6 year old? I have heard of moms and their teenage daughters sharing clothes, but never this. You know what? Maybe this story was TMI... Oh, well, it's out there now and I'm moving on.

It's that time of year when the number of loads of laundry we have to do increase due to the longer sleeves, longer legs and more layers. I love wearing Fall and Winter clothes. Being wrapped up in layers of cotton and fleece and waffle knits, walking around the house with feet kept toasty by LL Bean's Wicked Good Slippers, snuggling on the couch with my men under a colorful, warm throw and sharing memories evoked by the smells of cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, apples or roasting meat wafting through the air.

Speaking of memories, at dinner last night, we were talking about the days Elvis and John Wayne died. About our favorite athletes when we were kids (mine was Eddie Murray; Paul's was Mark Belanger). Then, something wonderful and rare happened - B asked to be excused from the table and went off to play quietly by himself! Paul and I were able to sit at the table for another half an hour and just....talk....uninterrupted. I love it when this happens. Paul is the smartest person I know and has a perspective and insight on things that most peple today do not. I do not watch a ton of news, so I like to pick Paul's brain for the real story behind the snippets and taglines I hear. During these conversations I usually learn 1 new thing about him from his past, too. These conversations are precious gems to us.

Do you collect Campbell's soup labels for your child's school? Do you know if your mom did for you as a child? My mom used to save them and send them into my school. I have no idea if it was mainly private schools that participated when I was a kid or not. The public schools definitely do now, though, and I think there is a conspiracy at Campbell's to prevent it!!! I think that label collection for school supplies has gone so widespread that Campbell's wants to stop shelling out cash for supplies in a very passive-aggressive way. When I was a kid, those labels used to spin around the cans! You could stick a pair of scissors inbetween the label and the can and cut it off. But now they have the entire label superglued to the can so either you can't get it off at all or it comes off in so many pieces it is no longer valid. It's a conspiracy, I tell ya! And I intend to take this up with that chubby-cheeked little soup slurper myself!