It's the Everyday Things, and the Rest of the Story

Last night in bed I said to my husband that I felt like a really bad mom because there is a lot of childhood info about my boys that I have not recorded.

“Like what,” he asked?

“Like their height and weight each year. I didn’t write it anywhere else. When I have taken them to the doctor I know they grow, and they know they grow, but I don’t come home and write it anywhere. And I don’t take them to Well Visits much anymore anyway. And I don’t have much of a baby book for them,” I answered.

“So what, my mom didn’t either,” he said (he's brief, albeit sympathetic).

I thought about that for a second. He’s right—she didn’t. He doesn’t have a baby book at all. And he turned out OK. Not to mention he and I both have about zero baby pictures of ourselves. But he does have congrats cards saved from his parents’ well-wishers, and a card from the hospital nursery listing his weight, date and time of birth. I have that too and the only growth measurements my mom wrote down are up till age two (I kept track of my stats starting at age 10). My mom wrote down how old I was when my baby teeth grew in, but I don’t think that I have for my kids. Oh I have tons of their baby teeth. Just have no clue what day they were lost or from whose mouth.

I do have the hospital bracelets of my first two boys. I even saved baby #3’s placenta (whole ‘nother story), made a belly cast that was later lost and then found, and have their births recorded on obsolete 8mm tape. I have a set of hand prints in plaster! I have photos! (not nearly as many as I could have though). There are boxes of cards they’ve made for me. Stories written and drawings are in plastic bins. We have vacations memories and photos.

Like I said in my post the other day I don’t think my boys will be too sad when they are grown up that they may not know exactly what height they were in 2005 to 2009. And I just realized that I can call up a certain pediatrician’s office and ask for copies of their files, which should have dates and heights and weights (not too many from past two years, but enough).

I may be able to salvage a few of their height markings from the garage door molding that has had the paint scraped off now. It’s really hard to read but I may be able to decipher some of it. It looks like this now:

So here’s the rest of the contractor story. After work on Tuesday we met with the contractor owner, who told us he was a man of his word and wanted to make things right and wanted to compensate us for the horrific mistake and he said he even got teary eyed over it. I said we hadn’t thought of a price—we’re just not that way, although I was very angry this past Friday (and then I got teary because perimenopause is pulsing through my veins these days).

My husband told him that when the work and touch ups get completed, he wants to be able to say he’s glad he hired them, and that he wants to be able to recommend him to the neighbors when they come asking, and that we’ve had other occurrences in our life that actually put into perspective of what is truly important. Hubs mentioned my blog again and how I reported that even though it was 7:00 on a Friday the foreman was trying to fix it. The owner really wanted us to name a price. We didn’t speak first. He really wanted to compensate us financially. We told him we couldn’t think of one. So he named

a price to take off the total cost and we shook on it.

Monday night was raining again and I had a craving all day for this cream cheese frosting recipe. So on the fly I suggested to Youngest son that we make cupcakes. Having a box of cake mix cut down on time and to “make it mine” I added a little scoop of powdered sugar, two tablespoons of cocoa, and a squirt of Hershey’s syrup. He was so happy, happy, happy to lick the beaters and next we made the frosting. I was going to keep the frosting off-white colored but he wanted blue, so why not. For the first time ever I spooned it into a zip lock bag, snipped off a corner and piped on the frosting. I do this with deviled eggs and it looks so much better. They really turned out pretty and were very tasty. I won’t make any other kind of frosting again, it was perfect.

So why mention the cupcakes? They made the boys really happy, just like reading at night makes the Youngest happy and the other things I do with the other two make them happy. There are many things that will be more memorable to them (I hope!) than the growth chart.