There are two gray plastic bins in the garage, each roughly 2x2x2. I bought them several years ago, to preserve the guys’ keepsakes. Important stuff such as the first outfits they wore and their first Halloween costumes. There’s a handprint a year for each of them, and their first sports uniforms.

They’ve both been in preschool since they were 2, so there’s always been a lot of projects to choose from. I’ve vowed to be brutal about purging, though. I just have to do it when Boots isn’t home.

That was before this week, when Big Guy cleaned out his desk and I hit a roadblock that even my hard heart couldn’t send to recycling.

It was his daily journal, a 200-page spiral notebook that lost its cover long ago. The kids had a time set aside each day to write or draw about whatever was on their minds.

Many entries were mundane – practicing numbers, equations or the week’s spelling words. Many were fairly illegible, particularly at the start of the year when his arm was in a cast. Others, though, offered glimpses into the heart, mind and humor of a little boy.

Aug. 26, 2009:

Make a list of your ten favorite foods.

1. Pisza

The rest of the page is blank, and I don’t attribute that to laziness. By October, he’d at least decided  to add ice cream, popcorn and Oreos to the list.

Sept. 21, 2009

Dear Mrs. M

I got on green to say we have been gud with are sub. How are you doing? We sang and playd.

I hope the substitute appreciated the serenade and gud behavior.

Oct. 6, 2009

How you play hid go seec

The prsin cowns to 30 whyl you hid. The othr prsin fid you.

Or, if the other prsin is your brother, he can’t find you and cries for Mom to help.

Jan. 6, 2010

Tooc Dad to the Army bus.

Got rid of the sink.

Did my homework.

Actually, we kept the sink but we did have to shut off the water after an early-morning flood.

Jan. 29 , 2100

I went to D’s hose.

Play at the park.

I wunt to go to Hawaii.

He can spell “Hawaii” but not “want”?

February 2010

I stay at howm.

Clearly, the red figure pictured above is me with a bad case of bed head. I can’t figure out if Boots is downstairs with me and Big Guy is a genie haunting us from the second floor or if Big Guy and I are being attacked by the zombies he’d mentioned a few days earlier.

March 15, 2010

The crowd is quiet. All eyes are on robbie Knievel. He is about to risk his life.

Note to Big Guy: If you’re going to blatantly plagiarize your library book, make it one your mother hadn’t read with you. And throw in a few misspellings. Knievel? Really? We’ll talk more about intellectual property rights in the future.

April 2010

The Wish Fairy

The mall

The zoo

Los Aglis

NASCAR ras

The air port

My cusins

The PX

Star buks

The following month, he added Disne, his gramma’s, New Yok and Las Vigis to the list of places he wants the Wish Fairy to take him. I’m hoping the Wish Fairy has her own corporate jet.

I think we’ll have to make room in the box for the notebook. And if the tub starts popping apart, we’ll just ask the Wish Fairy to stop and pick one up on her way to Star buks.

Copyright 2010 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

Similar Posts:

None Found

Popularity: 1% [?]