When asked what her favorite thing was at school today, she replied, “Smelling the coffee cans. Coffee smells gooood.”I can now resume claiming her as my own. (Of course, I don’t want to know what she was doing smelling coffee cans…)

One day my husband brought home a borrowed CD. He put it in the stereo, turned it on, and we listened to it while making dinner. Usually, our dinner-time music selection plays lazily in the background, hardly forcing itself upon us. But, as one particular song began, the music became the only thing I heard. I stopped cold.”Hush,” I said, as I strained to listen to the tune. Somewhere, deep inside my brain, a long-forgotten memory was ressurecting itself. I suddenly found myself singing along.“…for he’d many miles to go that night, before he reached the town-o, town-o, town-ooo. He’d many miles to go that night, before he reached the town-o…”I smiled at the childhood memory now coming out of the stereo. I could hear the old-time music as it sounded on my record player. I could hear the pops and hisses from the record as it spun around. I could see the pages of the read-along book lying in front of me. I could feel the hard wood of my bedroom floor pressing up against my body as I lay upon it. The sights, the sounds, all an unexpected, forgotten blessing.I was graced with another forgotten memory this weekend. We went to see the movie Millions. In it, a young boy fashions a fortress out of moving boxes and wooden pallets. I met the images of the boy in his fortress with a warm smile of recognition. Long ago, I, too, had a fortress of cardboard and wood. And I’d forgotten about it, until watching that movie. And then all the memories of games and secrets came flooding back.Of course, the next day, the kids got a great game of “Tent” going with a little help from me. I laughed as heartily and honestly as they did during the ruckus. Likewise, I ordered a copy of The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night as soon as I found one, and Zoe now regards it almost as highly as I do. I’m doing my best to make sure they have fond memories of some of my forgotten memories.I jokingly made the observation, a little while ago, that Zoe is at the age where she’s able to remember things for years to come. I said I needed to be a little more careful, making sure I’m the mom she’ll have fond memories of. There’s a flip side to that observation, about which I’ll make no joke at all. She’s at the age where she’s doing things that I have memory of doing myself. Childhood songs, games — they’re all a regular presence in my life, once again. Evan will be doing more of the same sooner than I care to admit.If I’m lucky, maybe they’ll bring back a few forgotten memories as well. I can’t predict what it will be, but one day they’ll say or do something and there it will be. A memory I’d long forgotten and never expected to recall. A memory that brings a smile to my face. A memory I’m ever so thankful to have brought back to me. Memories are wonderful, but forgotten memories are divine.I knew there was a reason I had these kids.

[Capturing a little bit of family history here.] My Grandmother was a college graduate in 1922. Greensboro Women’s College. In that day, a college degree was an admirable accomplishment for a woman. I’m rather proud of her. In fact, hanging on my wall in my living room is her college portrait. She was quite a looker, if you ask me. She taught mathematics for many years with that college degree, singly supporting her family of three children after her husband passed away when my father was twelve years old. She amazed her students with her ambidexterity at the chalkboard, by starting to write a sentence with her left hand and switching to her right hand as the sentence carried on. (Her ambidexterity was the direct result of her natural-handedness being supressed as a child with rags bound around her left hand .) I figure that trait, coupled with her formidible height and presence, made her a seemingly witch-like force to be reckoned with in the classroom. She was well-known in her day as the teacher to avoid. I wouldn’t have wanted her as my teacher, for sure. Alas, it is not my Grandmother’s teaching career that brought lasting fame to my family, but that of her sister in-law’s. You see, Aunt Lavinia taught school as well. And she taught Andy Griffith. Yeah, that Andy Griffith. (We have the Christmas cards to prove it. He may be a curmudgeon at age 80, but he was a sweetheart of a former student. A Christmas card every year until she passed. Well into the prime of his career.)The lasting fame, of course, is that, with a little bit of math, you’ll find that I’m quite tight with Kevin Bacon. Andy Griffith was in the Andy Griffith Show with Ron Howard. Ron Howard directed Kevin Bacon in Apollo 13. Stick my great-aunt in there and I might as well be his next-door neighbor.And, you too, can be a part of the glory. Of course, you have to claim to know me to do so.

Twice in the last week, I’ve exited a store vaguely aware (ok, fully conscious) of a mistake — in my favor — in the checkout process. I’d say “honest” mistake, because there was no overt action on my part to cause the checkout error, but to do so would amount to undeserved absolution. Undeserved, since I was fully aware of the problem — if only slightly after the fact — and I could have done something to correct the situation, but I didn’t. I even half-heartedly tried to justify my windfalls, once on the grounds that I’d received horrible customer service in the store and a second time on the grounds that the store I purchased from is under a bit of moral scrutiny of its own. Of course, I realize that my justifications are themselves morally bankrupt.

My plague of moral turpitude continued this week as I eyed the lily-of-the-valley sprouting in the yard of the unoccupied home two doors down from me. The garden is hideously overgrown, but peeking out of the mess are some glorious bunches of lily-of-the-valley. And I can’t deny that I haven’t, more than once, been tempted to pluck them out of the mess and give them a new home in my garden. Who would ever know?

I’ve heard integrity defined as doing the right thing even when doing the wrong, but self-serving, thing would go entirely unnoticed. Certainly, my actions in light of the checkout mistakes and my thoughts with respect to the lily-of-the-valley are the antithesis of integrity. Of this I am not proud. This entry, in fact, is my small and embarrassingly insufficient “mea culpa.” My grandparents, my parents, and even my husband have taught me better. I really should abide by their higher standards.

But there is one standard of values to which I shall never aspire. The question of hiring help to clean our house produced, hands-down, the most bitter argument my husband and I have ever had. The argument approached moralistic grounds when my husband asserted that, in his book, cleaning house was just something that people should do. No one, he said, should be above housework. All of my arguments to the contrary — about time better-spent — fell on deaf ears. So, together, we clean the house. And now that we’re on one income, the argument is moot.

But don’t think that not for a single moment while I did housework this morning — not a single moment — I wasn’t thinking of how good it would feel to have someone else doing the work. High ground, my ass. I’ll stand on spotless low ground any day.

It’s bad enough that they won’t eat macaroni and cheese. But yesterday’s failed trip to the ice cream parlor tops the list. Two scoops of ice cream sat utterly untouched. That’s a grievous error in my book.If I hadn’t been materially involved in their births, I’d seriously question my part in their existence in this world.

Last night, as I was getting the kids out of the tub and getting them ready for bed, I turned to Zoe and said, “Zoe, go on in your room and get some undies and pj’s on.”"Okay.”That was it. Just an “okay” — and then she spun around and headed to her room. Moments later, she returned, dressed for bed in underwear and a t-shirt. Exactly as I had asked.This may seem like a less-than momentous occasion, and, by most standards, I’d agree. Except, the moment struck me precisely because it was so ordinary. Just a casual command. But, instead of being convienently ignored, or producing the minor protest typical of the three-year- old that lives in my house, my small command was quietly obeyed by a little independent, self-assured girl. And I might have missed it if I hadn’t been paying attention. Of course I can’t pin-point when this change happened. It’s not a moment, but a collection of moments. Recently, when I look at my daughter, when I watch her throughout the day, I see someone far more grown up than I expect. Her body is changing — she’s growing taller and stretching out of the toddler-esque clumsiness she’s held on to for so long. Her face is thinning and losing any remaining toddler pudge. Even her hair, which was so slow in growing out, has suddenly grown long and thick.It’s not just the physical appearances that have changed so dramatically on my watch. She’s maturing in other ways as well. She seeks out friends on the playground, and aches to have her friends come over for a playdate. She leads her brother in pretend play. All the hallmarks of frantic toddler emotions are long gone. The willful disobedience hasn’t disappeared overnight, but I’ve noticed a change in how she reacts to being disciplined and how she’s able to make more astute connections between her behavior and its consequences. And, like last night, there are even a lucky few moments of obedience — not a sighful resignation, but simply an “okay,” a non-event, if you will.This is no surprise. This has happened before. One day I was holding a baby, and the next day I had a toddler on my hands. It will happen again. One day I’ll send my kindergartener on the schoolbus, the next day I’ll pack her up for college. My babies grow up. They all do. If it weren’t so ordinary, it wouldn’t be so extraordinary. Thing is, we miss the extraordinary all the time. I just got a little lucky last night. Somehow, amidst the rush and chaos of the mindless task of getting the kids ready for bed, I was graced with a moment of consciousness. Somewhere between “Go and get your jammies on” and “okay”, I caught a glimpse of my little girl growing up.

The gal, she is no longer. Sold! To the highest bidder.Let’s hope her fate is not the same of my first real car. (The black 1980 Ford Mustang forced upon me in high school didn’t count as a real car. It only drove during sunny weather. No self-respecting individual could claim it was a car under those circumstances. A donkey, maybe. A car, absolutely not.) My first real car — a 1983 Honda Accord Hatchback — was a fine specimen of a vehicle. She saw me through college, all four years and 100,000 miles of it. That’s a lot of weekend road-trips. I shed a tear when they drove her away.The next day I saw her being towed out of the shopping center parking lot. Whoops. Sorry.Really, I do hope our German Frauline shows much better manners to her new owners. Please, wait at least a week.

Warm Weather. But not for the usual host of reasons. Getting to play outside is nice and all, but what really makes me thankful for warm weather? It virtually eliminates an entire category of clothing from the wash: socks. And I need all the help I can get in that department. Seven months of sock-free wash! There is a God, after all.

On Evan’s Plate: black beans, raisins, and tomatoes.On Zoe’s Plate: a hot dog, raisins, and tomatoes.On My Plate: a hot dog (with chili, cheese and onions), chips, and dip.And we wonder why ours is a culture of bulging waistlines. File this one under utterly embarrassing.

“So, the big question of the evening is this: Do you want to mow the lawn or do you want to watch the kids?”Pause.”Mowing the kids is not an option.”Pause. “Neither is watching the lawn.”Pause. “Well, then, I guess I’ll mow the lawn.”If my mother were dead, she’d be rolling over in her grave. At the very least, Hell definitely was a little chillier last night. It’s amazing the things you find yourself choosing over watching your own kids.