Sometimes the Past Helps the Most

Our morning started like most mornings in our house…really early.  Bradley was up at 1:30 and then felt that 5 am would be an excellent start to his day… grunt, groan…coffee IV Stat!  The girls of course were bickering.  But I kind of have to pick a side on this one.  Madison is not a morning person.  She sleeps till 6:30.  I have agreed to wake Sydney up at 6:15 so she can get a head start on her day in some peace.  But at 6:30 on the dot she flips the light on in the bedroom.  So while Madison is just starting to hear that horrific buzzing from her alarm clock her sister is also flipping on the bedroom light…and it’s not super bright but at 6:30 am and sound asleep..I imagine it is not unlike jolting awake in prison, or boot camp, or maybe Hell…though I have never been to any of these…I have a great imagination.  So it was sort of like fighting out of the blocks, the buzzing alarm clock in place of the fight bell. 

Things didn’t get much better on the way to the car.  Fighting over who puts their bag where, who sits where… I think at one point they were fighting about who was breathing on whom…but that could have been another morning, although I know that’s happened. 

And then Sydney did something awesome.  I don’t know what sparked it, or brought it up.  If I knew I would bottle it and sell it, for now I just enjoyed it. 

Somehow, Sydney decided to take us down memory lane by drawing on her memories from Japan, and pulling out my memories to make her snippets make sense.  For those who have followed the Sydneyisms over the years, you might enjoy this:

First, Madison had a Little Mermaid Doll.  While Grandma was visiting us in Japan, the doll was oddly missing.  Madison was quite distraught, and we all looked everywhere.  Finally, my mom asked Sydney, “Sydney, have you seen her doll?”  To which Sydney responded “No” but as she turned to walk down the hallway towards her room she could be overheard whispering as only a three year old CAN’T, “Now where did I put that?”  Soon after, the doll appeared again on Madison’s bed…curious… 

After Sydney stopped laughing about that, she brought up the remote control.   Yes, that summer the remote went missing and we tore the house apart for a week looking for it.  I even went through the girls room thinking it might have walked in there on its own or with a little help.  Nothing.  Finally, in desperation, Eric asked both girls if they had it.  Insistent No from Madison, not much response from Sydney, she just turned and walked down the hallway.  I followed.  Sure enough, in the one drawer I had not looked in, she pulls out the remote and carries it back to Dad.  No one had asked her if she had it until that moment.  She remembered thinking it was an old and unused remote so she took it because it looked like a phone.  Ah…  At this point she and Madison are laughing so hard they are doubled over. 

And then she remembered taking my ID card.  I told her I was smarter by then.  Which made her bust out laughing even harder.  I chose not to take offense, little punk.  ;-)  So the story is this: I walked Madison to school then came home to change for work, I would take Sydney with me.  I always carried my Military ID, I just put it in my back pocket for the walk and would put it back in my wallet after I was dressed and ready to leave.  So I set it on the bar, and went to change.  Sure enough, I walk back in and the ID is gone. I start to panic, because I have to get to work and can’t get back on base without it.  I look in our junk drawer, nothing…then I stop.  “Sydney, where is my ID?”  She walks into the dining room with her bathrobe on, reaches in the pocket and hands it back to me.  Now I know she wanted it for play time, then I thought I was looking at a Kleptomaniac. 

After I tell her that part she is laughing so hard she’s crying and trying to defend herself.  She tries to remind me that she didn’t steal everything, she was just curious.  “Like when I spun Arwyn in my arms with a cup of milk, only I didn’t know there was that much milk in there.  And it flew out, and then Arwyn flew out of my arms cause she didn’t like all the milk all over her.  And I said ‘uh-oh’ and mom you said, ‘uh-oh what?’ And I told you I had spilled milk and you asked, ‘where’ and I said ‘Almost everywhere.’ Because I didn’t think the corners counted.”  I started laughing at that, yep corners count so you spilt it everywhere. 

The good news is that very little has gone missing in our house so we are pretty sure that she’s outgrown that phase!  J  The better news is that they were able to shake themselves out of their bickering in order to meet in the middle on the humor field and laugh themselves crazy before heading off for another grueling day at school.  And grueling is definitely tongue in cheek, they both love school very much! 

So yeah for our house a truly rough morning turned into a very funny trip through the snippets of memory they have with some more details to make those memories make sense and make them even funnier for them.  One for the good guys! 

Happy Friday everyone!  The Royals are in the Championship Series starting tonight!  Sydney and I couldn’t be more excited if we tried!  And believe me, we are trying!