Lydia came tumbling into our room yesterday morning and frantically shook her mother’s arm. “Mom!” she yelled, “Mom, we have to go to the store!” Andrea rolled over and looked at the little girl hovering next to the bed and blinked, “Why?” Lydia grabbed her arm and pulled toward the door, “We forgot to buy something!” she said frantically between pulls. “What did we forget to buy?” The little girl rolled her eyes at the question. “I can’t remember. But that doesn’t matter. We can go to the store and look at things and we will remember what we want when we see it.” Andrea and I both groaned. Some people are just born with the gift, touched delicately on the cheek and anointed…
A father's struggle to capture his children's brief moment of youth in words and pictures
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I’m in Vancouver on a business trip this week. I almost didn’t get to say that though, because my mother forgot to tell me that she and my dad are Nigerian immigrants. I’m used to passing through customs. Although, I told my coworker while we were standing in the long winding line entering into British Colombia that it would be hard to not try and talk to the customs agents in Russian. The most foreign feeling in the world is being able to understand a customs agent. But apparently it doesn’t matter if you understand them or not. They are all the same. I politely approached the counter and handed the young uniformed man my paperwork. He quietly looked it over and then looked…
We upgraded Clara to a booster seat in the car the other day. It’s kind of a big deal in her little world. But this big change came with some unexpected surprises that we are all having to adjust to. The largest one being that Clara has now lost her coveted center throne in the back of the car. This golden seat has now been given to Lydia, and along with this seat comes the responsibility of taking care of Gideon who sits in the rear-facing bucket seat right next door. So, now it is Lydia who has the task of reporting on all of the hard to answer questions that we ask from the front of the car. Such questions as “What was…
I stood on the other side of the fence looking down at the two of them. “Now, what kind of ice cream can I get for you girls?” They giggled and danced in a circle next to my pretend ice cream truck. “What do you have?!” they asked. “Just look!” I waved my arm over an imaginary field of ice cream. “I have vanilla and chocolate, cherry, apple, fudge, cookies and cream, Everything! Pumpkin, Cinnamon, Bologna, Popcorn, Bubble Gum-” Suddenly Lydia exploded with joy. “Bubble Gum! Bubble Gum! I want Pink Bubble Gum Ice Cream.” “Okay!” I smiled and started scooping the air and placing it on my fist. “Didn’t you have a bubble gum flavored lollipop just this afternoon?” “Yes,” she said taking…
Clara has an interesting habit of getting her yesterdays and tomorrows in reverse. I believe this is common among children. To be confused and (if you’ll permit me, with all love and respect) stupid to the point of sounding brilliant and magical. Take for instance the fact that Clara commonly will approach me and begin telling me a vivid energetic story about something that “happened two days after yesterday”. I raise my eyebrows at this, and take the opportunity to learn every fragment of physic vision that she has about tomorrow. Although I typically find that tomorrow sounds an awful lot like things that happened just a few days ago. “Will Granddaddy sit at the dinner table and tell us stories about the future,…
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