Memories for Sale

There is something about yard sales that always makes me feel a little sad.  I don’t actually know if sad is the proper adjective to use; nostalgic maybe?  Either way, sifting through someone else’s things makes me feel like I’m either invading their privacy, judging their sanity (that is to say, “why in God’s name did you ever own that?!”), or getting a glimpse at who they were at one point or another.  This weekend it was the Doyle’s that were on display in the neighborhood.

I not-so-secretly used to wonder, often aloud and full of scorn, how my parents had acquired so much crap in their house.  Well I ate a big ‘ole slice of humble pie as I recently looked around my own basement and wondered, aloud and wrought with that familiar scorn, how we had accumulated so much of our own shit in the basement of a home we had only inhabited for four years.  My parents had at least taken a good thirty or so years to do their damage but I felt like at the rate we were travelling, I was well on my way to an episode of hoarders.  So, yard sale it was. 

We put out tables and tables of items that had at one time seemed like great little home additions- lamps, framed art or decorative quotes, a yo-nana (the frozen “yogurt” maker-that-uses-bananas-but-I’m-the-only-banana-eater-in-the-house-and-so-it-was-solely-a-dust-collector-investment...don’t you judge us), etc.

We were shocked each time a car drove off with things that we couldn’t imagine anyone would want.  More than that, the mix of people that stopped by entertained us.  I can’t tell you how many well-meaning older ladies commented after seeing some of the baby items we had for sale, “Oh you’re done having babies?”  I wanted to say, “I don’t know but this crap earned its spot on the table because I learned only by trial-and-error how ridiculous that trendy eco-friendly bathtub is and my incredibly overpriced stroller was awful to push and had no shock absorbency and woke my sleeping baby every time I pushed her in it and hit a bump and I am hoping that I can try and recoup my bad investments by making them seem appealing to you!”  Instead I just smiled and said, “For now!” because I may be a lot of things but I am certainly polite above all else.

Kennedy seized our clean out as an opportunity to evoke her executive veto power in regards to selling anything that she had ever laid eyes on.  Seriously, if she touched it at one point in her life we couldn’t sell it.  So we distracted her and kept her busy hocking lemonade at the bottom of the driveway in order to unload a few things we felt she could survive without-we like to live dangerously, Sean and I.  She was a natural, and made, with the help of one Cooper J-code name Gingersnap, $15 over the two days of selling.  Seriously though, the two of them ate it up, as did the people that downed their somewhat cool lemonade on a 90-degree day. 

My little guy made his presence known when our new neighbors stopped by with their two little kids, a little girl wearing an elephant on her shirt, and a little boy…named Holden.  I held it together long enough for them to walk away without giving them the impression the lady down the block is a lunatic, but I still have goosebumps thinking about it.

We broke up the days with some laughs, dips in Kennedy’s little pool, and freeze pops galore. 

So no, it’s not the things themself that make me nostalgic at yard sales but the memories that are attached to them.  Like seeing the little porcelain boy holding McDonald’s fries doesn’t really do it for me in-and-of-itself but it doesn’t take much for me to remember being the 7 year old girl begging her mom to make the three reasonable (HA!) installments of $29.95 after seeing him in a catalogue.  I remember watching my new little peanut sleep in that stroller on the back deck for hours wondering if I was letting her sleep too long and I remember being so excited to find the adorable canvas of a newspaper-hat-wearin’ pirate when I’d decided that would be the theme for Jack’s nursery.  And really when it comes down to it, you’re selling the stuff not the memories not to mention clearing some space to make some new memories.

little baby Kennedy

In a stroke of luck there were no takers for that because I don’t think I was really ready to let it go-and who knows maybe there is a place for him on my office walls next school year.

One last side note: I bought this from my sister for a quarter.  It is a 25 mL beaker that I will now use as a tiny bud vase.  Why did I have to have this you ask?  Well my rule-abiding-at-all-cost sister stole this from our uppity private high school’s science lab.  And that right there, ladies and gents, is a memory I will keep forever.

The First Few Breaths of Summer

I can remember counting down the minutes for summer vacation as a kid and just about hour into it proclaiming to my mom that I was “bored”.  That used to just about kill her, she would eventually get so sick of hearing us say it that she would threaten to give us chores to do so we wouldn’t be “bored” anymore; we would inevitably find something to do in order to avoid that sentence.  And so I would like to pat myself on the back because one week into my summer vacation and I have not been bored a single minute.  In fact, I’m a little tired.  But I’ll take busy, chaotic days with my girl and the people I love over just about anything else. 

We started the week off with a day in the park with one of our littlest buddies where Kennedy did her best to lure Zoe to climb things with her but settled for being able to push her on the swings.  I love to be around these kiddos but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make my heart call out of Jack when I watch her learning to walk and smile those big, beautiful one-year-old smiles. 

Sean left for the annual golf/fishing/man trip that the men in my family take in honor of my grandpa early Thursday morning and so that began a girl’s weekend for Kennedy and me.  It also was her last day of her first year of preschool-and that just about killed me.  As I dropped her off and she hopped out of the car in the drop-off lane and waved and said over her shoulder, “have a good day, Mama,” it dawned on me how fast this year flew and how fast the rest are going to go; so I did what any mother in her right mind does:  I had a good cry as I pulled out of the parking lot and then I called my mom. 

First day of Preschool

Last day of Preschool

After I picked her up my sister and I drove the kids up to Lake George to the Great Escape amusement park for the day.  My sister and I took turns riding with Mason who is still too little to ride the kiddie rides alone, each of us taking one for the team with the nausea in the heat.  I hit a low point as an adult when they wanted to go on this hot-air balloon ride that spun around pretty good because when Kennedy and Cooper got on and got themselves settled in the seat of their choosing I decided to pull rank and proclaim that I needed that seat with Mason so “he didn’t get sick moving backwards.”  They begrudgingly switched and we all got settled in just in time for the ride to start…moving in the opposite direction that I thought it would so that Mason and I were the one riding backwards to which he yelled, “this is fun!” and Auntie Tri held the vomit down as best she could. I lied to children to get my way and Karma took over.  It was a long but fun day that ended with my little lady curling up next to me in bed-something she had been looking forward to doing since we told her Daddy was going away (our bed is a strict no toddlers-unless-your-sick-zone).

Friday was an errands day that we managed to squeeze manicures into.

Yesterday we made our way to the country with my mom where my sister lives and into the local strawberry patch. I seemed to keep finding all of the strawberries that must have had a "little extra genetic material" and maybe its that I look for them subconsciously or maybe it's my little guy's way of reminding me he is with me wherever I go.  We picked, no exaggeration, ten pounds, and headed back to my sister’s for a dip in the pool and to make some homemade jam.  I ate all of that up (seriously, I’m still sticky I think after washing my hands at least a dozen times and showering that night).  I have decided that, like Olivia Pope, I may just live out my days making jam.

Kennedy and I woke up early this morning to clean the house and make some Father’s Day paintings for her grandpa’s, a few guys that make her one lucky little granddaughter, and waited for our favorite guy to come home.  I asked her what she loves about her daddy while she was swinging and quickly switched my phone into video mode and the results were priceless.  She loves when he kisses her, and tickles her, and scares her, and beeps his horn at her.  It’s funny because all of the small things that probably come through so effortlessly are the things she loves about him.  And I know what she means because those are the same kinds of things I love about him too and they are the same kinds of things I love about my own dad too.

 So after a week of enjoyable chaos we will wind down and celebrate the daddies in our lives we loves so much and I will continue to to my best to make sure none of use are "bored" this summer.

Oh and I have traffic court tomorrow- which my own daddy will be driving me to.  Oh to be a father…

With Summer in Sight

I can remember the end of the field trips I went on as a kid pretty vividly.  They were only day trips, which my mom generally chaperoned, or a trip to Six Flags, but as a kid they were the thing you looked forward to all year.  And so, this week led me to Boston for a few days as the chaperone for the 7th graders of my school.  They are the kids that worked incredibly hard all year to earn the chance to spend a few days, all expenses paid, in a beautiful city, taking in some pretty awesome sights they wouldn't get to see otherwise-and good ‘ole Ms. Doyle with some of my coworkers-turned-familyish friends got to go along for the ride.  Now granted, as fun as it sounds to be in a city I adore, it means leaving my own baby girl and my favorite guy, which never sits right with me but, thanks to FaceTime, I’m able to get by.

I am officially on summer vacation beginning Sunday evening, after we say farewell to our 8th grade kids.  While the trips were always awesome, it was the summers you really lived for; the promise of weeks of freedom are what pushed you through the last long weeks of school.  This is still very much the case and there is a certain little girl that is responsible for my longing for this week to go by.

Having a little taste of what our days will look like has me rushing this week by even more.  Waking up later and hanging out in our pjs longer than is socially acceptable, playing in the backyard and sampling the different playgrounds our neighborhood has to offer, waiting to hear to sounds of the ice cream man, going to the movies, and avoiding shoes at all costs- these are the things Kennedy and I live for.

So each time she excitedly asks me how many more days of work until I get to stay home with her, I get a little closer to my happy place.  But first, I must survive these last few days of school where I will pretend to be a 5th grade English teacher while the second round of End of Year trips take place, which I plan to do with copious amounts of Kennedy kisses and when all else fails, wine.