Five Things I Miss About Childhood Philippa was kind enough to tag me about two weeks ago, and I've finally finished my list. For some reason this was a lot harder than it looks.

Summer Vacation - Having five or six or eight weeks of nothing to do just sounds heavenly. If I recall correctly, I complained about being bored when I actually was on Summer Vacation. Gulp. I have piles of books that need to be read, and piles upon piles of scrapbook pages to be made, and housework to do, and thighs to reduce - all of these would be infinitely easier to accomplish if I had a few weeks with no work!

Eating - ok, so I still eat. But, I tell you, food tasted better when I was a kid. All of those wonderful treats - buttermilk biscuits, black licorice, cornbread, kool-aide - they aren't as yummy now, even though I still eat them. What's with that?

Paper Dolls - I used to have this huge collection of paper dolls, and interestingly enough, I don't think I usually dressed them and played that way, I used to write about them, and have these long dramas with them, and named them obsessively - my mom's Baby Name book was a favorite of mine to use to name them - I learned about so many neat names using that book (ironically, Cedric has mine to use in his story writing). Maybe becoming a scrapbooker isn't that much of a reach - I still get to play with pretty papers and fold and cut.

Crawling into bed to read - I remember staying with my grandparents during the summer, and crawling into bed with my grandmother and my cousins to read while my grandfather and my other cousin listened to "Masterpiece Theater". Oddly enough, for years I though MT was a horror show because I wasn't allowed to listen to it on the radio. This is yet another thing that I still do, and it's still a treat.

Being Carefree - even though I was an intense child, I still used to have a lot less on my plate.

Whoops - I forgot to tag others with this. How about Dawn, Nancy, and Nora

My Baby is Growing Up - the other morning, Xavier (who is nine) crawled into bed with me after Eddie had left for work. I got to thinking about how my snuggling with kids days are swiftly coming to an end - as Cedric certainly doesn't do it anymore. Those minutes before getting up with a sweet smelling head under my nose, and a warm body attached to mine (ever notice when you roll they roll with you?) - I think is one of those flashes of heaven on earth.

While I was thinking about him, I was remembering a few days ago when Father Daniel's sermon was about worry and the Christian life. The Gospel reading had been

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[b]? Matthew 25-27

Xavier turned to me and said "I don't worry about anything. Except those people we see on the side of the road who don't have anything to eat".

What a sweetie. It made me remember to resolve to carry lunches around more with us to give to those people. And, it also reminded me of how sweet Xavier can be, which is a nice thing to remember when he's whining!

Both of those moments were fleeting, and both of them I needed to make a mental memory of. May your day have a mental memory in the making as well.