Driving Down Memory Lane

It was a Sunday of reminiscing as we sat over lunch and remembered similar lunches over the last several years.  Several.  With the kids turning seven in less than four months, it is actually "severally."

It started when we went to get their hair cut and a toddler was getting his first haircut.  Ah, first haircuts.  I delayed that so long (I can't recall how long, but it was later than everyone else).  I didn't want their hair cut, didn't want them to stop looking like babies and start looking like kiddos.  I liked their long wispy manes.  But eventually I gave in.  And we went to one of those kids' salons that took pictures and gave clippings and such, which are tucked safely in baby books.  And, in truth, I hated it and cried all the way home.  Hated it, hated it, hated it.  And was sorry for a long time that we'd cut it; now it doesn't really matter, but I was distraught then at this early milestone.  It wasn't the first haircut but third or fourth that elicited the expected objections, particularly from Bud; then, he went through a giggle phase.  Sis has always sat as still as as statue.  But nobody slept the way Aunt Banana would!  Haircuts aren't a bit deal anymore, and much more frequent as they both now like their hair short.

We went to lunch after haircuts on Sunday, to the "salad bar" restaurant which was one of the only places we could take them when they were sensitive to wheat, dairy, eggs, and nuts as toddlers.  We could always get grapes, tomatoes, ham, olives, and baked potatoes there, our chosen after-church lunch place for a few years.  We had it down to a science, snagging salad almost on the way to our seats!  Mama would do a lot of the feeding while I ate because then I'd take over and then take the kids outside, where they would pick up rocks, barely, and throw them a few inches, the best they could do.  Sometimes, they'd want to take the rocks home.  Mama would finish eating, fill a plastic restaurant cup with our iced teas, and head to the car.  People often commented how well-behaved the kids were, how cute--they certainly were used to eating out at an early age!  And now they eat lobster, sushi, hibachi, kebabs, chicken marsala, and so much else.

We'd drive for the afternoon nap most Sundays, "driving to Massachusetts," we called it.  Gas was cheaper then and it was all we could manage to do as exhausted parents with twins, relishing the quiet alone time as the kids usually fell asleep in the backseat.  We often discussed and debated the sermon, made grandiose plans, vented, whatever came to mind, that is before I fell asleep after the halfway mark.  We saw a lot of CT on those hours-long drives.  Sometimes, especially towards the end of the car nap era, Sis would fight to stay awake, twirling her hair, sucking her fingers, and kicking her feet.  Bud would almost always fall asleep, hands behind his head in the tell-tale sign of tired, head flopped forward in his 5-point restraint car seat in the position we called "losing his neck."  They often threatened to wake up when we turned back home and so Mama knew all the smoothest exist turnarounds off the highway and we'd hold our breath, hoping they stayed asleep.  Without fail, though, Sis would wake up as we got off at our exit.  Sometimes they were grabby in that just-woke-up way, or chatty, or contemplative, or hungry.  And to think now they want audiobooks and never sleep in the car.

Good times, then and now.