One of the great things about having children is seeing the world through fresh, innocent eyes all over again. No matter where you are or what you’re doing — whether you’re at the grocery store or sifting through boxes in the attic — children see and say things in a totally different way than adults do.
I’ve been sick the past couple of days, so I decided to take care of a few tasks that escape my attention when I’m in my usual mommy go, go, go mode. I figured that taking the opportunity to do some quiet projects would keep the boredom at bay and actually get little meaningful things done at the same time.
I grabbed an old box of photographs from my kid-less days and set to putting them into albums. My sons, ever curious and not a bit put off by my gruff voice and the bags under my eyes, nestled in to supervise my work. As they thumbed through the pictures, they started asking me questions about the people and places that were unfamiliar to them.
Usually, I jump at the chance to reminisce with my littles, because I know as they get older those questions will be fewer and farther between. However, given my sore throat and admittedly limited patience (I’m sick…give me a break), I quickly tired of explaining every single photograph. But, they were so enthralled by these visions of mom before she was mom, I couldn’t bear to put the box away. Instead, I asked them to tell me what was happening in the pictures.
They quickly started to craft detailed, and sometimes completely random, stories about what was taking place in the pictures. And let me tell you, their versions of my life were way more interesting than I recall. One picture, which was simply a couple of friends and me in front of a carved bear statue, sparked a completely bizarre, yet adorable, tale about a bear-shaped tree that came to life and ate my pals’ soup. I’m not sure where the soup even came from, unless it was a loose interpretation of Goldilocks’ ill-gotten porridge, but that’s neither here nor there. The bottom line is that their story was absolutely hilarious, and the more they made me laugh, the sillier it became.
What started out as a sick chick’s project to fight boredom turned into an awesome family activity I know I’ll remember forever. It’s those little moments when my kids show me how magical and wondrous the world still is that fade the not-so-mystical moments (i.e. time outs and poopy diapers) out and make room for the mental keepsakes that I always dreamed of.
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