My Snoopy outfit apparently had me feeling faster than I really was. I hit the garage door button and took off running to slide under before it closed. Eight year old me didn’t make it. The door came down on top of my belly and then bounced up and down until my screaming brought my neighbor-friend’s dad outside who hit the button to stop it. (Autumn, do you remember this?)
My nephew, Zac, calls these “Mine Stories.” Whether it be the fact that when we go to visit my sister the 8 children we have between us simply want to buy a few extra minutes of wake-time OR maybe they actually enjoy Aunt Brooke’s stories (that wouldn’t be my vote), it’s one of my favorite things.
Stories ranging from my brother and I riding bicycles in the air, building forts in plowed up wheat fields, to me chopping down a huge branch with a tiny pocket knife that I then had to hide from my parents.
Earlier this week Hads was telling me how much she hated COVID. I get it. I so very deeply get it. We all get it. The whole entire world gets it.
I told her, one day you’re going to be 30-something and telling your 8ish year old about the time you and all your friends had to stay home from school because some bat (or whatever the heck it was) spread a virus to the whole darn world that shut down schools and stores and fun…and caused everyone to hoard toilet paper…but you spent quarantines swinging on a tire swing and riding your bike and jumping on the trampoline and making more cookies than your mother’s body could stand.
It’s her “mine stories.” All of it.
I sit here thinking how much I want my kiddos to be able to go back to “normal” school. To normal life. But, obviously, I’m not in charge.
There are “mine stories” that include me stepping in a patch of stickers in my alley and my neighbor (a different neighbor) carrying me home. Stories of me getting the news that my great-grandma died right after I got home from my Uncle’s funeral. Stories of me crying myself to sleep at night for months because of some huge, huge changes in my life that struck me to the core. Stories of the bike wrecks. The boyfriends. The failures.
Hads told me this week, “I don’t think anyone in the whole world has ever been as sad as me right now. (She LOVES school, okay.) Why can’t God just throw COVID in the garbage?”
Kids have missed graduations, sports, family gatherings, camps, social interaction, and TONS of other things.
This is their story. This is our story. As much as I want to take their sadness away, it’s not mine to take away. They experience sadness. They experience anger. They experience loss. BUT…someday Hads is going to tuck in her kiddos/nieces/nephews and tell them some “mine stories.” She will (hopefully) appreciate the life she lived, the fun she had, and the craziness of her family.
I’ve been writing this blog for years (obviously not consistently because…well, I’m me). Before this…I was writing pages and pages of journals. I have a whole tub of prayer journals and stories and life written on paper.
I am a huge fan of memories. I can become engulfed in the past in the matter of a tub lid popping open to a world of forgotten moments. I write (not only because I know I will be forgotten one day and this gives me a tiny bit of comfort that maybe my kids will find it and read tons of stories that they will probably wanna kick me for sharing) because I want to remember. The good and the bad.
Here’s what I want to remember today:
J started dancing this week…and claps when you ask him to. It’s super cute.
J is also 10 months old and has never slept through the night. In fact, he still wakes up 2-3 times a night and I get extremely mad about this!
Malachi announces himself when he talks to us from another room…”Momma, it’s Malachi here. Can I have milk?”
Malachi also likes Kyle way more than me right now. Today I poured him a cup of milk and he refused to drink it. Kyle poured it back into the milk jug then back into his cup and he drank it.
Everly baked a “cake” out of flour, water, baking soda, coffee grounds, two pretzels, and sprinkles today.
Everly lost her mind when I helped her little brother beat her in a race. I have never seen that level of anger in my whole life.
Hads is a cutthroat checkers player. She annihilated me…and I was trying.
Hads leaves a trail of paper, colored pencils, pencil sharpening shavings wherever she goes.
Kyle has had COVID and gets to bust out of quarantine tomorrow…leaving us to remain home for 14 more days. He taught me how to play chess today. We played 7 times throughout the day. I only won once…BUT this allowed me to sit across from his face for at least two and a half hours.
What the heck? It’s 2:00AM. You know what I didn’t accomplish on my to-do list today?
Shower.
Bye friends.
Hey Brooke Fuller 