Tag Archives: Children

The Library

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Stepping into a library is like stepping back in time. There is a strange and strong sense that this whole system is arcane and unnecessary in today’s high-tech information age. And yet there is something sweet, innocent, almost magical about walking through those doors and being greeted by the sight and smell of rows upon rows of old, dewey-decimaled books. One almost expects to turn a corner and be greeted by “The Pagemaster” himself.

I was always in love with the library as a child – where countless volumes of stories and pictures and even films were available for anyone to borrow and return on the honor system! The only cost of taking armloads home with you was the responsibility to bring them back on time. But even this was negotiable. If you didn’t really want to return your new treasure just yet, you could call and let them know you’d like to keep it a little longer. No problem. Being given a library card was like being given the keys to a whole new world of possibility. One full of unknowns and mystery and knowledge.

But somehow, as I grew up and the world grew around me, I forgot. I left college, started work, started a family, got a smart phone with access to ALL information ALL the time . . . and I forgot. I had not stepped through the doors of a library in over 7 years! Until . . .

I rediscovered the unquenchable thirst of a child who LOVES to read. My son, who turns three next week, cannot possibly get his hands on enough stories and would sit and be read to all day if the adults in his life would just cooperate! I’m not sure how I made it 3 years before finally taking him to this magical place of my youth, but when I finally did, I saw the same wonder and fire in his eyes that used to exist in mine. Perhaps he’s reignited it. As I watched him run from one shelf to the next and excitedly uncover stories both familiar and foreign, fiction and non, and immediately plop down on the floor where he found them and ask, “Will you read dis to me?” I couldn’t help but be inspired.

And, as the rain flooded the world outside, my little boy and I sat on the floor of the library and traveled to far off places, experienced different times, and believed the impossible. 16 books and 2 hours later, we walked out with a brand new key to this kingdom of books and a deep knowledge that it would not be so long before I came back the next time. With my son’s new-found passion, and mine rediscovered, I knew . . . information age or not, there’s nothing that can replace good, old-fashioned books or the house that holds them sacred and keeps them safe.

Makeovers and Making Memories

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I am coming up on the one year anniversary of the birth of this blog! I am extremely humbled and grateful for the amount of people who have consistently read and contributed to it and helped it to become a successful and fulfilling endeavor. That being said, I feel I do need to apologize for my somewhat inconsistent writing schedule of late. I decided that, on the eve of such an important anniversary, the look and feel of Nostalgia In The Making needed a bit of a makeover. So, much of the time that I would normally have devoted to writing has been devoted instead to developing concepts and ideas for the redesign. Be sure to keep an eye out for the upcoming fresh new look!

But until then, I thought I’d do a quick photo update. Summer has definitely arrived early in the deep south this year and it is absolutely intoxicating. We have been filling so many of these lovely afternoons with quintessentially summer activities. Hopefully these little snapshots of youth and enthusiasm and beauty will brighten your day!

Aiden, beside himself with glee at the kid's carnival we attended this past weekend. I mean, who wouldn't be with an Iron Man shirt, a face-painted super hero mask, and a jump house?

Learning to ride his new 16" bike! With a little help from Daddy.

He's a fast learner :)

Jammin' with Daddy at "The Shop." This was their first time to just play around together without being focused on teaching or watching one another. It was pretty amazing!

Our first time this summer to play in the awesome fountain at the shopping center where Daddy works. It was twilight and the weather was still beautiful for it. He had such a good time!

Watching him play made me long for those magical days of childhood when we have so little inhibitions and we naturally live in the moment. It also made me grateful, again, to have such a vibrant son to re-live these moments with.

Spending some quiet time in the morning rediscovering his old toys in Owen's room. I can't wait to see them playing together!

Sitting down to our family fish fry after a LONG, relaxing day of fishing at the reservoir. It is an amazingly satisfying feeling to catch, clean, and cook your own food. My boys were pretty pleased as well.

Does First-Born = First Priority?

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I find it slightly telling, and a little sad, that one of my primary motivators for doing creative and special things for Owen is a desire to keep up with my former self. I can’t very well play favorites even before my second-born arrives, so I have to gather up all the energy and creativity that remains in my older, more preoccupied life to simply do for Owen what I did for Aiden. The difference is, with Aiden, everything was novel and new. My whole life centered around the fact that I was about to have a child. So I read 12 different books on pregnancy and parenting, crocheted blankets, took pictures of my belly every few weeks to document the process, and did fun, creative things like making wooden plaques for his hospital door. This time, the fact that I am now 30 and already a parent with a wildly active toddler as well as a job and home to keep up (while trying to sell it and move!) definitely factors into the equation. It’s not that I love Owen any less (I hope), it’s just that life does not afford me the same luxuries it did before. Well, I may have fallen woefully short this go-round in my parenting research and belly pictures, and the blanket I started may or may not be in various shades of coral and pink (oops!), but I did manage to find it in me to make a pretty wonderful door hanger for Scarborough 2.0, with a little “help” from Scarborough 1.0.  We actually had a really good time and I devoted far more of my evening to it than I originally anticipated, but I couldn’t be more pleased with the results!

My big boy working on his "Project" while Mama worked on hers.

The finished product for Owen's hospital door.

Aiden's hospital door hanger (for comparison). After the hospital, his hung in his room for 2 1/2 years till he moved into his big boy room. I'm thinking Owen's will do the same and I coordinated the colors appropriately :)

Hopefully I can continue this trend and take plenty of photos once Owen arrives and document all his special milestones, just as I did with Aiden. And in all the ways that I do fall short, I hope he will one day understand that being first-born did not make Aiden first priority, it just meant his parents were FAR less busy!

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

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It’s hard to believe that an entire year has passed since we first listed our home for sale. It is a beautiful home. One that we wouldn’t be trying to sell if it weren’t for school districts and the consistent cares of old home maintenance. It was listed for 8 1/2 months before we took it off the market for a brief respite over the holidays. 8 1/2 months of never leaving the house in any state but immaculately show-worthy! Constantly picking up, cleaning, hiding, stressing, and leaving on a moments notice to allow strangers to invade our most intimate space and pass judgement on it. I don’t look back on that time with fondness. And for a short while, we had hopes that we may not need to re-enter the rat race if we could get our son accepted into a charter-like,  public Montessori school, since this philosophy of education would give any highly rated private school a run for their money. Alas, we just found out that he was not accepted, despite his obvious brilliance and charm. So we find ourselves returning again to “Plan A” – sell the house and move into a better district 10 miles away where the schools are rated twice as highly as those of our district. Only this time, I get to do it while being largely pregnant and recovering from a c-section with a new baby and a toddler. Yippee! We considered waiting, but by the time I recovered and life returned to pseudo-normalcy (whatever that means), it would be well into the summer with only a few months before the holidays begin again and we find ourselves right back into the spring, a full year from now, with only 1 year of buffer to try to sell before Aiden begins kindergarten. So we decided to pull ourselves up by the boot straps, do some thorough spring cleaning (it is amazing how quickly bad habits can return when you are not required to keep everything spotless anymore), and re-list. We are meeting with agents this weekend and the deed should be done before the end of the week! So here we go again! Hopefully this time we will find success . . . and much more quickly. Wish us luck!

Always Playing By The Rules?

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Today I set a very bad example for my son… or a very good one… I can’t decide. Rules that, if broken, harm no one and bring great enjoyment to the breaker, seem to me to beg to be challenged. At least every now and then. But at what age is a child capable of understanding when and where this is appropriate. I mean, if Mommy breaks the rules sometimes… You get the idea. Let’s say (hypothetically) that a very pregnant mama desperately wanted to go swimming today – to be able to, for the first time in months, not feel like a two hundred pound lunk and do something completely different and fun. And let’s say that the only club with a pool that I, I mean she, had access to was closed today but this was not discovered till after getting completely dressed and ready for the pool with (her) two-year old and driving up to locked, dark doors. What would you do in this situation? Why, walk into a nice local hotel, of course, with a kid in one arm and a phone in the other, act like you belong there, and harriedly ask the janitor to please get the door to the pool for you. I mean, what harm could there be in taking advantage of an already heated and treated pool being used by no one. In reality we were doing them a favor because at least all the effort and money they spent on keeping up the pool was not completely wasted on disuse. Did my little man understand the concept of crashing a hotel pool uninvited? Probably not. Will he look back and remember and understand? Maybe. Do I regret it? Definitely not! We had a grand-tastic time and memories like these are priceless and could never be traded for a lifetime of always playing by the rules.