Shared Memories

Sometimes, I can't help but think about how very different my children's lives are from my own childhood.

Part of this is the span of decades. I marvel at the fact that Issa can log in to the computer, pull up her games, and play on her own; my first memories of computers were either the big chunky ones that glowed all over and had four buttons that made big clunking noises when you pushed them or, a little later, computers that required a really floppy floppy disk and made big chunking noises while it thought about maybe playing a game...at school...if you were very good and finished your work. Play dates just showed up on the porch asking to play and didn't come with allergy lists or Mom's cell number because if you were allergic to something everyone already knew it because it was really life threatening, we had never heard of gluten, and there was no such thing as a cell phone.

Part of it is location. Growing up, trips to museums took planning, college campuses were far away, and real highways were few and far between. Museums and college campuses are a regular Tuesday around here, and my kids know the highways by name. I grew up identifying soy beans and corn in the field; I'm not sure my kids know what a soy bean is and we work to help them understand the origin of dinner is not the grocery store.

In other ways, though, our childhood stories are so similar. There are the big things: holiday traditions, seasonal decorations, and shared stories. Some things are far more mundane: family recipes, family dinners, favorite books, and old folk songs. My favorites, though, are those moments that are just a little big magic--the memories that make the kids' eyes sparkle and make me feel like a kid again, too.

This weekend, we put one of those magic pages in the kids' childhood story books. For the very first time, we caught lightening bugs.

We waited until it was barely dusk and we could see little lights flicker across the backyard. We poked holes in a jar lid, and we headed out for the adventure. Evan had a little trouble, but he loved the pursuit:



 I ended up catching them and passing them off to him. Issa, however, was a natural:

 Daddy was keeper of the jar. Let me tell you, these lightening bugs are bigger than their northern cousins! We were very glad we had chosen a big jar.

 The kids had a blast chasing little lights around the yard:

 And then we brought them inside to our bathroom, the darkest room in the house, to watch them flicker for a bit:

 We all giggled, naming the little lights and clapping whenever they twinkled.

Soon, it was time to let them go, and we waved as our little friends flew back into the yard, lighting a path:

 Twinkling as they went:

And if that's not magic, I don't know what is.