Out With Old Memories, In With The New?

We've been moving out of the rooms in our house in stages. Mid-stage, we were due to be out of our master bedroom by June 1st. On June 2nd, we were mostly out, I had a few odds and ends left to box up, but it was looking pretty good.

I came home from errands yesterday, and the entire upstairs hallway was boarded off.

Ugh! No fair warning, my contact lenses were still in their container. Dirty towels, shampoo, a full garbage can--it was all in there. To be clear, we are not remodelling the bathroom, so I was not thinking so much about the "crap" in there.

Ohhhhhhh, but I need that crap. Especially my contact lenses and glasses! And of course, a girl needs her concealer!

Our super dooper contractor (this man seriously should be wearing tights and a cape, he's that awesome!) kindly unbolted the wood and peeled back the plastic and let me go in to clean out my essential lotions and potions.

As I finished boxing up I spied this:

Years ago, we had visited Mrs. Grossman's Sticker Factory. These were some of the treats we brought home. As I was working on some project or another on my bedroom floor, I looked up to see that Ruth had decorated the inside of the closet door.

Yes, I am the type of mother that would let her kid's willy nilly creation remain on the inside of the closet door. I often don't have the heart to part with any of my kid's creations, and I simply didn't care or mind that this adorned my closet door.

It will all soon be a memory in a matter of minutes. The banging and clanking has started for the day.

My new memories won't be as colorful and childlike in my new bedroom, I'm sure. I'm also a little bit sad about that...

This is why I may have to, HAVE TO, go back to teaching pre school!

Portrait of a Mean Mom

That's blurry old me--Mean Mom. There will be at least three best-selling books written about the ways that I've ruined my children's lives. My husband might jump in on that money-making boat, as well. He's got some humdingers to tell, that's for sure.

My meaness came to mind this morning when I was looking through old photos. It's holiday time, so we need to whip out a card with some fairly recent photos--this is mainly so some of our distant relatives might recognize us at family Christmas parties and not call the cops.

A lot of the photos on iPhoto are actually movies from this summer--movies taken on my new iPhone, by then 7 year old Birk.

The charming summer memories last for the first 15 seconds, then I am in the background of almost EVERY single one, yelling, "Get off the dock with my phone!!!" Or, "Stop, you're using all of my battery!!!" Or, "Turn that off now, you are using up all of my memory!!!"

Someday, my daughter will pull up the files of these summer memories. She will sigh with wonder at the beauty of her childhood. Then her pleasure will turn to horror.

I'll be dead and gone, but will live on screeching, "Don't drop my phone in the water!!!"