Tonight, pizza and wine with a dear friend.  Feel ever so grateful to have these people in my life.  She's reading "Little House on the Prairie" to her girls and I'm envious because I don't think my Sadie is old enough to really, really love it.  I want her to really, really love it.  I think about when I first read these books.  I was nine.  It seems that many of my strongest memories rooted deeply in my ninth year.  I read "Little Women."  And figured out that my Dad was mortal.  I got my ears pierced.  A friend died.  Big things.  But I remember little things, too.  Like singing Christmas carols with my brother in the backseat of my mom's old, yellow Volvo.  I remember my winter jacket.  Bright blue with yellow elastic at the wrists.  I hated that jacket.  

My kids have memories now.  They have memories with more staying power than the soap bubbly remembrances of their youth.  This makes me self conscious.  What will they take with them into their forties and beyond?  Though I want them to take the same things I did, I know that everyone has their own packing system.  When I travel, I always pick a color scheme before I pack my suitcase.  My husband just takes whatever is clean.   It's just what we do.