So, in Mouse’s comment to yesterday’s blahg post, along with her laundry list of stuff for us to bring (take?) over to kzoo this weekend, she asks, “which one of us said that?” The one who, on the way to college for the first time, read the billboard for Popeye’s Chicken as something like “pope-ee-yes”. I guess the apostrophe didn’t even give a clue. It was definitely Lizard Breath, who is also the toddler in the pic, sitting in the Commander’s old red chair with Hush Puppy (needs a mama) and none other than the Commander, reading Harold and the Purple Crayon.

It is funny the things you remember about certain days in life. For the most part, my memories of Lizard’s first day of college are a mishmash, mostly involving schlepping endless loads of crap up three and a half flights of stairs to the top of Trowbridge Hall and eating breakfast (finally) in the school cafeteria with a whole bunch of other Planet Ann Arbor alternative school parents who were just about as dazed as we were. But certain little bits of conversation have stuck with me. The Popeye’s thing and “can you get Dad to settle down” and “she’s tougher than she looks”. Do I remember the convocation speech? No way.

My kids will tell you that I am not really the best mother on earth. But one of the randomly few things that I did that were successful was that I read to my kids. A lot. When the Lizard was in kindergarten, the rule of thumb was “read to your kindergartner 30 minutes every day.” Say what? I was lucky if I could get away with under about two hours! By that time, we had made our way through Charlotte’s Web and The Wind in the Willows and any number of other books that I can’t even remember now. It was one of my favorite things about being a moom. And it is one of the things I miss the most about when they were little. I loved those books as much as the kids did.

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