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Also, I’m posting hugely embarrassing photos of myself so it seems only fair in return.

Thalia at 8. Me at 11.

My oldest daughter is now eight and the youngest, six. It’s a strange thing to now have children at ages where I can remember so much of those years myself. I catch myself saying “I learned to ride a bike with training wheels at six too.” Or “when I was your age I remember a dollar would get you 2 slices of pizza and a small fountain Coke! Now go get my cane.”

I cannot project what my girls’ memories will be of the next few years, as they hit their tweens (when did we invent that awful word anyway?) and ramp up into their teens, stumbling toward adulthood hopefully with more grace than I did. But I do remember my own memories of each of those years. And I can’t help but compare, predict, wonder, where the similarities will be.

We don’t remember days, we remember moments. -Cesare Pavese

9 Getting my ears pierced and not having to wait until 13. (Happy birthday to me!) My first R-rated movie with my dad: Animal House. I still recall wondering, “what’s the big deal with the dean’s daughter admitting to that fraternity boy after they spent the night together that she’s only 13? That’s a teenager. That’s old!” The rambunctious, undisciplined boy in fourth grade who made the teacher cry. Falling in love with music through the AM-FM clock radio on my nightstand. Hearing the word goddamn in an Eagles song and asking my parents, can they do that? Is that legal? Continue reading →