TDY, 24 and Barbies

Blah.

I came on here wanting to unload some thoughts and I've deleted everything I've typed so far.

Me and the girls are flying solo while Isaak gets some special training in the middle of no where right now. We have big plans while he's gone to eat lots of cereal for dinner, followed by chocolate shakes, and dance parties to Mamma Mia.

I have big plans on reading The Voice in the Wind, which I just got from the library, and watching as much 24 as possible. I tried to tell myself that I would wait to watch them until Isaak came home, since that's our new favorite obsession...but I just can't go ten days without my 24 fix. It's bad. I stayed up till 1am last night (would of only been midnight but stupid day light savings sucked an extra hour from me.) And it's even more pressing that I watch them since Netflix is going to be taking them off my instant view in twenty days. So glad I didn't jump on the 24 wagon when it came out 9 years ago...I would have been driven to insanity having to wait every week to watch them!

Marvi is coming down with a little cold so we stayed home from church this morning. Poor girl has forgotten how to blow into a tissue; every time I ask her she just sucks it all back up. That snot is liable to be in there till she's five the rates she's at.

Sydaleigh climbed out of bed a minute after I left her room last night, followed by Marvelly and before I knew it I was pulling what remains of my collector barbies out of my closet and looking at them with the girls. Over the past two years I've been slowly taking one down at at time and giving them to the girls to play with. I've had some of these Barbies for 20+ years, and they've just sat in their boxes, only to be looked at and never played with. I decided a few years ago when Sydaleigh first discovered them and I saw her eyes bulge out of her head, that I would give them to the girls. What good is a toy if it's never played with. I want to see my girls delight in them, rather than just collect dust because they might be worth a few bucks. They're not worth more than the joy my girls will have in playing with them, that's for sure.

While I took them down I forgot what I even had up there. I found a Barbie Odette from Swan Lake with wings that light up. Another Rapunzal. Holiday one's galore. A Talk of the Town. Looking at them made me ever so thankful for my mom, and how she delighted in buying me special things. And now I get to enjoy them with my own kids.

Kinda surreal.

Somedays I think back and I'm ten years old again, sitting on my daybed, looking at my soft green walls covered in hockey posters, and looking up at the long wooden shelf my dad built for me to store all my special barbies. I'd play with my barbies for a while, and then bust out my slew of hockey cards. Back and forth I'd go, equally delighted in both. And then I hear giggles, or screaming, and I'm transported back to my adult life as a mother and wife. Crazy how fast life changes. But I still have it all, stored safely away in my closet. The barbies, and the hundreds of hockey cards. A gentle reminder of my time as a child. Well, except now new little children are playing with some of the barbies in their bedroom. And, who knows, maybe one day I'll have a son who loves sports and I can give him my old hockey cards, to look at and sort through like I once did.

It's a beautiful cycle.

And I'm off to revel in it.