Some Treasures From the Past...

Each year when I trek up to the attic to pull out the tote marked "FALL", I am bombarded with memories. I pull out this pumpkin, Mark painted it in elementary, it has survived the years and its tempura paint surface combined with the dried out construction paper gives me the willies when I touch it. But I love it anyway. It has an adorably crooked mouth and the stem fell off long ago, but it brings back memories of my sweet little boy, with his husky voice bringing it home with a happy smile. Did you see that backward "G"? He switched certain letters perfectly backwards when he was young. As a mom I worried about it, alot, worrying did me no good, but it did correct itself. These are the things that I think of when I look at Mark's pumpkin. I love how it brightens up the kitchen on these dreary fall days.

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Jamie made the black cat in elementary school. Some caring teacher cut out the head and the tail, the legs and the bottom of the body, the rest is made of the old standby and a best friend of preschool, kindergarten and elementary teachers: popsicle sticks. The kids painted the body, added eyes, nose, whiskers made of twine and a jaunty bow. I have kept this ever since because I can see my delicate little blonde daughter, bent over it in complete concentration, taking special care and love, because she especially loved (and still loves) kittens and cats. She put the best into everything she did and I'm almost sure when the whole class had finished and they lined them up on the counter by the windows to dry, that her cat looked the best of them all.

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I hope she can use it one day to put her peanut butter MaryJanes into at Halloween! These things I treasure and these things make me glad sometimes that I tend to be a packrat. What treasures do you keep? I think the things that are most valuable to me tend to be the ones that could never be replaced.