WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE

I was sitting on the floor surrounded by old photos when my son Alex came in the room.

“What are you doing?” He asked as he looked at the mess I was sitting in the center of.

“Reliving memories.” I sighed as I held up a photo of him with just his head sticking out of his laundry bin. “I think you were two at the time.”

Alex took the picture from me to get a closer look. “It looks like I climbed into a garbage pail.” He laughed.

“It wasn’t a garbage pail!” I cried. “It was your laundry bin!”

He handed me back the picture. “Still, seems weird.”

I looked back at the picture and couldn’t help but smile. “It wasn’t weird. I used to find you in the strangest places.” I looked up at him. “You’d climb in your toy box and cover yourself with your toys.” I laughed at the memory. “One time I even found you under a pile of clothes in your dresser drawer!”

Alex shook his head. “I guess I forgot to tell you I wanted to play hide-n-seek.”

“Oh, I knew we were playing!” I laughed. “You were certainly good at it! I don’t remember how many times I’d have to follow your giggles to find you.”

I began looking at other photos that were scattered around me. “Oh, I loved this day!” I cried as I picked up a photo of him at about three years old. “We were at Disney World and I got you that great Mickey Mouse propeller hat!”

“Oh, man.” Alex cringed. “I hated that hat.”

I had to laugh. “I found that out on the second day of our trip when I went to put it on you and you told me the propeller had ‘fallen off’!”

“What can I say?” Alex shrugged his shoulders. “I was problem solving at a young age.”

I looked back at the picture of him wearing the hat. “You had a huge smile on your face when I took this picture!” I began shaking my head. “Why didn’t you just tell me you hated it?”

“I didn’t hate it when you took the picture. But after an entire day of every Disney employees spinning the propeller on my head I decided I’d had enough!”

“You told me it just fell off.” I reminded him.

Alex shrugged his shoulders again. “I didn’t want you to be mad at me.”

I looked over at him confused. “We were all staying in the same room. When did you have time to snap the propeller off?”

Alex eyebrows shot up and he started to laugh. “I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and brought the hat in with me.”

“Are you serious?” I looked back at the picture. “But you were only three years old!”

“A strong and determined three year old.” He reminded me.

“Clearly.”

I put the picture down on the pile and looked around at all the others scattered on the floor. “There are so many stories these pictures tell.” I sighed.

“Yeah.” Alex leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “But some of the stories are remembered differently by each one of us.”

I had to smile. “You’ve got to love a nice walk down memory lane.”