Memories

I think there will be a few posts with this or similar titles.  As I'm down sizing I find things that trigger a nostalgic feeling. Some good memories, some not so good and some bad!  This house was where my kids transitioned from children to teens to adults.  It's where my husband died and I had to cope with everything while grieving.  It's where I got cancer and ended up in hospital for a week, and still having checks every few months.  Fifteen years, lots of memories, lots of feelings.

This morning I was talking to one of my students about raising children.  She was telling me that her commute to work was over 90 minutes and that coming home she would spend as much time as possible with her children.  One thing she did was read to her children at night or make up stories to tell them.  I remember doing this as well.  I was lucky in that I could work at home but when I was working I would focus on that.  To be honest I would sometimes feel rather resentful that I had to spend time teaching other people's kids when I wanted to be with mine, especially if the kids were rather obnoxious.  

My husband would take care of bath time.  It's a tradition in Japan to have a bath every night, not just a shower, but soak in the tub.  When the kids were little it was a good play time for them.  They would come out all wrinkly, having spent up an hour in the water.  They would then have a snack and drink, brush teeth and either watch TV or read until I had finished teaching.  I would get into bed with them and read a book or two or three until they dozed off.  Sometimes they would wake up and ask for me to finish the story.  As they got older I would read longer books to them, Roald Dahl was popular and later the Harry Potter books.  Even though I was so tired some nights I'm glad I did it as all my kids love to read and I have so many good memories from that time.

A few of the books I used to read to my kids.

These I'm keeping!  There's another one that I want to find.  It's one I took and read to Hannah everyday she was in the NICU.

A lot of the other books I can let go of, but these are so precious to me!