Remembering

Today, Damon and I spent another Friday afternoon doing "arts and crafts." I banned the paints, so mostly we were coloring, cutting and gluing, but I think he was still satisfied with the experience. He really wanted me to watch him, which made it hard to do the things I wanted to to, but I finally gave in and sat down next to him. We were working on a book of "community helpers" he got from preschool, coloring the different pages, and as we took turns coloring, I had this vague flash of memory come to me. I remember coloring in a Minnie Mouse coloring book with my mom, amazed at how well she stayed between the lines. I even remember outlining my own pages, trying to cover up the mistakes I had made. Kind of random, but that's the way my memory of my childhood is.

I wish I could remember more from when I was younger. In school, we had to write a paper about how we learned to read (to help us understand how to help children learn to read) and I had a difficult time really remembering what it was like to be five. I know a lot of us are like that, that we don't recall a lot of what happened when we were young, but I wish I had a better recollection of my life back then. All I really have are bits and pieces, and I'm sure some of the things I think I remember are really stories I've heard or family movies I've seen. Here are some things I know I remember:

• Going along with the whole reading theme, the phonics system in kindergarten with "Block A, Beating heart, cracking nut, etc." Does anyone else remember that?
• Burning my leg at the neighbor's house and setting a towel on fire in their kitchen (pre-kindergarten).
• Singing "Kindergarten's over and we are going home. Good-bye, good-bye and we are going home."
• Getting in trouble in first grade for walking while trying out a pair of scissors.
• Getting in trouble for having a toothbrush in my pocket (we had been visited by an orthodontist in the morning and it fell out). First grade.
• Thinking it was crazy in music to sing "Fa-a long long way to run" instead of "far-a long long way to run." Second grade.
• A boy in my class peeking through the window that was the belly "the old lady who swallowed a fly" and getting in trouble for it. Second grade.
• My memories start to get better around this time, but one clear memory from third grade is fixing the grammatical errors in the sentence "I hear my neighbor eating ice cream."

I was thinking about this, because there is a very good possibility that Damon will not remember much, if anything, from Ohio and Florida. That makes me sad, because it is his life and there are so many things that I know I'll remember. I guess I'll just have to do my best to share with him the things that are important so that, even if he doesn't remember, at least he'll care.