#4 What do you like to create?
When I read this prompt I knew my answer instantly. Memories. I create memories. Everything I do with my family is for the memory. Every birthday I write letters for the kids where I talk about everything they’ve been doing for the past year, I stick them in the age appropriate card with a hundred bucks and store them in their memory boxes. THEN…when they graduate I will hand them 18 cards capturing the past 18 years of their lives with 18 hundred dollar bills inside.
I know I know. Savings bonds. I know. I’m just lazy.
Anyways I blame my extreme “memory creating” obsessiveness on my Dad. Because he died. I wish he didn’t have to go and do that, but the good news is that I’m a better mom because of it. Now I don’t know that FOR SURE, but I like to think SOMETHING positive came of it all.
I do everything based on what I would have liked to have had from my Dad to remember him. Everything I do for my kids now, I do thinking “if anything ever happens to me at least they’ll have this…” From the yearly birthday letters to personalized cds, to pictures, to The Blog, to weekend trips fun places…yes it’s fun and I enjoy the process of “creating” all these things for them…but in the back of my mind the driving factor is knowing that anything could happen to me and I want them as much as I can while I’m here.
Morbid isn’t it.
Now you see why my family calls me Daria?? Now you see why I’m dark??
Anyways, I remembered this post from last October where I talk about this exact topic. It fits perfectly actually…so I’m gonna re-run it…and you’re gonna like it darn it.
Here tis:
On Saturday I insisted, to a reluctant husband, that we carve pumpkins. Pat’s thinks carving pumpkins is tedious and messy and the girls are too young to even care.
While I agree to an extent, I’m also a firm believer that we need to be “creating” the memories. So that they feel like they’ve been involved with carving pumpkins since they were little girls. And let me just add that EVERYTHING I do for the girls today is to “create” good memories for them in the future.
I live for the past of the future.
Does that make any sense??
Anyways, I happened to pick up a special pumpkin carving kit, complete with carving tools and designs at Target. Sunday evening the girls and I cracked a pumpkin open and got to work. Laina refused to touch the innards and ran to the living room to watch Cinderella.
For the 20 gazillionth time.
Maile, on the other hand, was great about rolling up her sleeves and getting dirty. She counted seeds. Grinned at the slimy feeling. And lasted a whopping ten minutes or so and then joined Laina.
Before I knew it I was all alone sawing at this tiny pumpkin with a tool that HAS to have been made for a five year old. The worst part is that Maile had picked out this stupid bat design that I was supposed to trace onto the pumpkin. So it’s not like the simple triangle eyes and nose I’ve done in the past. This one has twists and turns and lots of fun angles to dig into with my cheap arse tool.
Pat found the whole thing to be quite entertaining:
“How’s it goin‘ Kat?? You making some good memories over there!?!”
Then a little later:
“Boy Kat, the girls are never going to forget this!!”
It took all I had not to throw the pumpkin guts his way. Remember THIS foo. Alas. I did not.
By the time I finished, my little bat pumpkin hardly resembled the design. Though I’m still pleased with the finished product as my expectations of myself are quite low when pumpkin carving is involved. When all was said and done Maile and Laina came running back to stake claim to a project they had nothing to do with and Pat took pictures for them to fondly look back upon someday.
I’m sure they’ll forget all about the hour they spent watching Cinderella as I painstakingly carved that dumb pumpkin. They’ll look at those pictures and think they were there with me the whole time, helping to carve pumpkins.
Creating memories.
That’s what it’s all about. :)
EVERYONE’S excited in the beginning.
Do you see the bat??
Maile come back and insists she get to put the candle in.
Now do you see the bat??