childhood

Warm-mug moments

/ Meg / 7 Comments

Just before my kids closed their eyes last Saturday night, I broke one of parenting’s Ten Commandments: Though Shalt Not Make Promises For Things Out of One’s Control.

What can I say? I’m a silver-haired, tired mom rebel.

“Guys, it’s going to snow tomorrow!” I blabbed.

My son immediately looked up, eyes shining. “Enough to have a snowball fight?” he asked eagerly.

“Enough to make a snowman?” his sister echoed.

Yes! I boomed. Absolutely!

Like I could control the weather. Though I would if I could for my children, of course.

Oliver and Hadley have been talking about a good snow since Hadley’s interest in “Frozen” began in earnest last year. We were all ecstatic when a dusting fell on Christmas Day, but it disappeared just as quickly as it had magically appeared. No snowballs. No snowmen.

Last weekend’s “storm” — all of three inches — was the most the Washington region had received in two years. And on a weekend! By Monday, I was frowning at the same scene while contemplating my commute. Icy Tuesday was even worse. My second vaccine dose was scheduled for 9:20 a.m., and I had an hour-long drive ahead of me. “Be cautious, but drive with confidence!” encouraged my boss, an Ohio native made of sterner stuff than me. But I took her advice seriously, white-knuckle coasting most of the way south. I arrived for my shot just in time.

But none of that worry was served on my Sunday plate. I was immensely proud that I’d remembered to buy hot chocolate mix, thinking of how my dad always made cocoa with tiny marshmallows after my sister and I “helped” clear the driveway. I can still feel the ice coating the hem of my jeans before I had slipped into sweatpants, bounding downstairs to find that special treat waiting.

I want to create warm-mug moments with my children. At five and three, I’ve already seen how simultaneously fast and slow these years have gone. I’m fascinated by the idea that any of these simple events could actually solidify, proving to be the kids’ earliest memories. How can I make them good ones?

Through the pandemic, I probably join many parents in believing I have not been my best self. While I try to enjoy the little things, day-to-day life cannot be separated from the fear and heaviness of everything else happening in the world. I’ve had so much on my mind lately. We all have.

And yet. Already the boots purchased in anticipation of a day like this were snug on my children’s feet. I’m Mom, not Mommy, and the last of the toddler clothes have all been packed away.

We jumped into the moment. My husband, a New Yorker also made of stern winter stuff, packed snowballs and chased the kids on a gleeful mission. Each time they ducked behind a vehicle or skittered around a corner, Spence found a way to arc the snowball into a hit. Even Ollie, who hates being cold or wet or uncomfortable in any way, tolerated these hijinks. Enjoyed them, even.

After we’d all had our fill, cheeks red and toes chilled, we shuffled inside and shucked wet jackets just inside the door. I wrestled Hadley and Ollie upstairs for warm baths while Spencer got to work over the stove. By the time we returned, the kids’ hair damp and eyes shining, Spence had prepared four mugs of cocoa — with tiny marshmallows. It tasted like simple happiness, with memories settled at the bottom like coarse sugar.

We hadn’t received enough to build a snowman, as I’d naively promised … but we definitely made good on the snowball fight.

And you can’t go wrong with a day ending in chocolate.

Circling like it’s 1996

/ Meg / 4 Comments

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It would appear overnight: rows and rows of paperbacks, “chapter books” and illustrated classics. When the Scholastic Book Fair rolled into my middle school, setting up shop amidst the short stacks in the library, I didn’t even try to act cool. Who can act cool in the face of a veritable literary buffet?

Having some of my parents’ cash in my pocket and the autonomy to choose any book I wanted was intoxicating. I remember obsessing over the flyer sent home, tallying up the costs for stories I wanted to share with Mom and Dad (I always went overboard — imagine). I’d come home clutching a new purchase like Walk Two Moons, an all-time favorite. Then I’d collapse on my grandparents’ couch after school and get lost in another world until dinnertime.

My husband casually dropped the first Scholastic flyer sent home from the kids’ preschool on the kitchen counter with all the other mail and detritus, like it was just another piece of paper.

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I wasn’t ready for the buoyant whoosh of emotion that hit me when I saw it. I’m talking serious, legitimate excitement … I mean, as excited as a frazzled 34-year-old mom with a pinched nerve in her back can get, anyway. I sat down with this thing like it was a particularly juicy bit of gossip I wanted to absorb in great detail.

And absorb I did. I started circling books like it was 1996, y’all. Curious George! Little Owl’s Snow! Dinosaurs Don’t Have Bedtimes! Few stories were safe from my Sharpie.

Never mind that we have stacks and stacks of children’s books already — some I began collecting long before Oliver and Hadley were even born. But as my sister correctly pointed out, the collection we have now features baby-approved or extremely “young” stories. As we get closer to Ollie learning to read himself, I’m investigating the early readers and beyond.

I chose two new stories to add into the bedtime rotation, placing our order online (hello, 2019!). I’m definitely more excited than they could possibly be.

And now, the hardest part … the wait.

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

/ Meg / 23 Comments

Christmas tree


Though I’ve been listening to my Michael Bublé holiday station on Pandora since before Thanksgiving (shh), I’m just now getting into the Christmas spirit. Eh, I guess it’s just been a little whacky around here lately.

And now I look up to discover the holidays are upon us. With our nuptials no longer zapping every ounce of energy from my body, I’m finally open to drinking hot chocolate, digging out beloved Christmas ornaments, lighting evergreen-scented candles and generally basking in the warm glow that is our first holiday season as a married couple. As we put up our Christmas tree on Saturday, I was reminded of all the milestones we have yet to reach — and how exciting it is to be doing these things together.

The holidays have always been celebrated loudly — and proudly — in my family. We put on Hanson’s “Snowed In” as we throw tinsel and set up the Christmas village, lining shelves with artificial snow and hanging our stockings with care. I have such fond memories of Christmas a kid, especially the prep work, and I wanted to extend those traditions to the home I now share with Spence . . . which meant finding my favorite ornaments for our tree.

Though I kept many special ones with my parents, a few bearing personal significance made it to the new digs — including my pink Power Ranger circa 1994, many cupcakes and the wooden cable car Spencer and I picked up in San Francisco on our first big trip together last year. As my mom and dad honeymooned in California on their honeymoon and picked up a very similar ornament in the ’80s, I almost fell over when I saw this little gem at the Cable Car Museum two summers ago.

It seemed like destiny. I had to have it.


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Our cable car, 2012

Mom and Dad's ornament

Mom and Dad’s cable car, 1980


Given how much we like to travel, it’s no surprise that many ornaments come from past vacations — especially London. I have a slew of English ornaments I purchased abroad or bought when I got home to bring back happy memories. And they definitely do . . . like my William and Kate wedding ornament! I picked it up at the Buckingham Palace gift shop (otherwise known as my happy place) in 2011.


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Since we don’t have the biggest tree in the world, we had to be selective with what we hung from our noble branches this year. We tried to include a healthy mix of Spencer’s childhood classics, including some porcelain Grinch ornaments, as well as newer additions commemorating our marriage. We made as much as space as we could — especially my favorites from childhood.

I’m big on continuity — and tradition. Keeping old ones, making new ones . . .

And drinking hot chocolate all the while.


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Cloud-watching

/ Meg / 12 Comments

Clouds


I’m a cloud-watcher.

Though I was rarely one to lay on my back in summertime, imagining shapes and patterns in a cloudy sky, I am fascinated by weather — and tend to document anything unusual I see. (This leads to lots of cloud-related chaos on Instagram, but I’m all right with it.)

Growing up, I wanted to be a meteorologist — a passion that persisted until I realized how much math is involved in the science of weather. Long fascinated by hurricanes and tornadoes, I used to sit at my grandparents’ house watching The Weather Channel (or TWC, if you’re cool like me) for hours. As this was the ’90s, I’d track the storms on their primitive radar, listening for the first rumble of a storm and informing family if we could expect nasty winds.

My uncle Jim, one of the sweetest men I’ve ever known, used to pop by to see us at my grandmother’s when we were young — and he wouldn’t get two steps in the door before asking with a cheeky grin, “Megan, what’s the weather this week?”

I always had an answer.

Uncle Jim gave me my first farmer’s almanac, and I carried that tattered paperback around everywhere. It was great supplementary material to my frequent TWC viewings, and I loved “predicting” winter storms when hurricane and tornado season had passed.

Tornadoes were the best.

Being such a cautious worrywart now, it’s funny to think I once fashioned myself a storm chaser. I dreamed of moving out to Oklahoma or Kansas, wandering free in Tornado Alley, and reporting back to headquarters like Helen Hunt in “Twister.” In fact? Helen Hunt was my idol. Spencer and I watched that movie again not long ago, and it was still so awesome.

I went down a different path, obviously — editing and writing and studying Shakespeare. My dreams of meteorology dissolved sometime around high school. But there’s still a little part of me that appreciates and studies and daydreams about the weather . . .

. . . and can’t pass up a good cloud photo.


The things we keep

/ Meg / 5 Comments

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Despite the fact that my closets get cleaned out pretty regularly, you still never know what you’ll find in there.

After picking up my wedding dress, I quickly realized my overflowing childhood bedroom didn’t have space for that ginormous garment bag. As I continue to lose weight (now down 14 lbs.!) and go through my wardrobe, I’m realizing that many of the clothes I once loved have become . . . well, less exciting. And baggy. Or old. I need room for new things, so the old things must be redistributed. On a recent weekday night, I began to pull old stuff from my closet and bag up what I no longer need.

It was pretty therapeutic, actually.

One of my recent finds was that ensemble above: a long, wool nightgown featuring Taz the Tasmanian Devil. My “Looney Tunes” phase, circa 1995, was interesting; I still have the miniature Taz backpack I used to sport. I’m thinking my mom picked this little number up for me one Christmas — and it still had the tags.

As I prepare for the married life, I’m sure I’ll have a few breakdowns — and more “look what I found!” posts. As a twenty-something who still lives at home, I have quite the accumulation of materials. I’ve already purged the old ‘NSYNC and Backstreet Boys-emblazoned teen magazines, donated bags and bags of old T-shirts and corduroy pants and other ’90s-era fashion choices . . . and generally brought my room up to the 21st century. My space is, for the most part, pretty tidy — but I have a lot of stuff.

Stuff that will soon buddy up with Spencer’s stuff. And our stuff will just . . . throw a big party.

I’ve been thinking about the things I’ve kept and the things I’ve given away — especially now, being confronted with childhood memorabilia all over again. My old Minnie Mouse sleeping bag; a lopsided globe I won after being named champ of the fifth-grade Geography Bee; old trophies and lamps, Hanson shirts and yearbooks. An entire adolescence in one bedroom. My personal history distilled into . . . objects.

And they’re just objects. I’ve watched enough episodes of “Hoarders” to know these things are just things. But I think it’s safe to say that, you know, the items I’ve kept over the course of 27 years must be the ones with real meaning. These are the belongings I have to make room for in the next phase. Amidst all that will change, this is what I must keep.

Maybe not the Taz shirt.

But everything else.


One of the most exciting gifts of all time

/ Meg / 35 Comments

Puppy Surprise


Thinking about gifts this week, I remembered one of my favorite Christmas presents of all time: Puppy Surprise, a stuffed animal that kept her “babies” in a belly pouch. Kind of like a kangaroo but, you know, a dog.

My little sister and I were absolutely nuts over these things — and I remember begging for one for months. I probably saw it in a catalog or something. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I was desperate in my pleas for the dog family — and probably none too quiet about it. My grandparents always let us open one gift apiece on Christmas Eve, and when we ripped into that colorful paper? There she was: my white dog and her multi-colored pups. Surprise!

As you can see from Kate’s photo above, we. lost. our. minds. And this photo was taken after we actually opened the toys at Gram’s, guys — not even a live-action shot. My sister has always been a cat person, so her kitty variation was a huge hit. I remember being so excited over Puppy Surprise that I woke up multiple times in the night, peeking into the darkness to make sure she was still by my bed.

And then, eh, Santa brought some more stuff — and a merry Christmas was had by all.

But nothing could top that fluffy dog.

I found the photo above when flipping through some old family albums; that gem came from 1992. Though I often pitched a fit as a kid, I’m so glad my mom had us pose for countless photos at all the right moments.

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What’s the most exciting gift you remember from childhood — something akin to “A Christmas Story’s” Red Ryder BB gun? Or one of your most memorable holidays?


No one forgets their first love . . .

/ Meg / 8 Comments

. . . and mine was Peter Brady.

Listening to Matthew Dicks’ Memoirs Of An Imaginary Friend on audio, I’m reminded of all the places I took my own imaginary friend as a kid. In Dicks’ novel, main character Max has a buddy named Budo, his protector and watcher of all things, and I felt like that about my own friend . . . although he was rather familiar-looking to many of us: Peter.

I was probably around 5 when the Brady family came skipping into my life. Spending summers at my grandparents’ house, my sister and I watched nightly re-runs of “The Partridge Family” and “The Brady Bunch” (this was the early ’90s, after all). Having decided I wanted a brother, Peter became his immediate stand-in. As the boys at school and I got older and paid me no mind, Peter was the one who made me feel accepted. He was a little mischievous, much like his character, but he never led me into any trouble.

In Memoirs Of An Imaginary Friend, Budo’s protective nature and understanding of Max is written incredibly well — and Budo definitely reminds me of Peter. He’s sweet, kind and supportive, and I can’t help but want to hug Budo for the way he makes Max feel loved. Listeniing to Dicks’ novel, I have to keep reminding myself that Budo isn’t real. He’s a figment of Max’s imagination: the representation of something he deeply craves. But given how human he seems, I can’t process that Budo doesn’t exist.

Or does he?

I’m only on disc three, so we’ll see.

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Did you have imaginary friends growing up? How old were you when you “outgrew” them? Do you remember much about them?