ON SENTIMENT IN MOTHERHOOD

I don't think of myself as a sentimental person, yet when I look around the room I realize that it is full of sentiment.

a trio of wooden dinosaurs carved by my grandpa.
the collection of Winnie the Pooh books that I read as a child.
Nate's own stuffed bear, Smokey with the singed paws.
a single dried rose from Rose's baby shower.
a dresser from my dad's childhood.
my Raggedy Ann doll.
that glass vase held flowers at my wedding.
a stuffed leopard that was once my brothers & a small stuffed cougar cub that was also his.
a wooden bear that used to sit inside Nate's childhood home.

My babies sleep in the same room I grew up in. The walls may be a different color, but the windows are the same ones I covered in lace curtains & stared at the moon through almost every night of my adolescent life.

I don't think of myself as a sentimental person, but when my children are playing in the yard that my brothers & I used to explore & I'm showing my son the juniper fort we built & imagining the ways I'm going to fix it up for him, it is a bit difficult not to be.