Monday memory: three princess pull-ups

At age 3, Drew was nowhere near potty trained. Meg had already started down that road and had alternated periods of wanting to wear big girl underpants and wanting her pull-ups back. Drew didn't care. He was happy with pull-ups. We bought both girl and boy gendered pull-ups for the twins, but it turned out they both preferred the girl ones. In particular the princess ones. In particular the princess on with three princesses on it.

The packs came with one princess and three princess designs. They would rifle in the pack to find the three princess ones. In fact Meg was so enamored of them she hid them once. I would be changing their pull-ups and announcing to Drew and Meg that we had run out of three princess pull-ups. Meg ran off so I changed Drew, who would classically say "Not right now please" when I asked to change his pull-up. After I was done Meg came running back in saying I found one, holding up the three princess pull-up proudly. After she had done this a few times, we found her stash of three princess pull-ups in the bottom of the china cabinet.

When Drew died. Meg was in underpants again, almost trained she was fully trained by summer. Drew was still wearing his three princess pull-up.

Monday memory: switching coats

The church next to my college has once a month dinners in the church basement sponsored by several of the various religious groups on campus. Faculty are welcome to come although the majority of the attendees are students. It's free and usually kid friendly food, usually pasta, so we typically go.

The last one we attended before Drew died was mexican night instead of pasta. Meg and Drew wouldn't eat the tacos themselves, but enjoyed the beans and shredded cheese greatly eating them each separately. One of the substitute preschool teachers was there and commented on how Meg and Drew were two of her favorite students, even though she isn't supposed to have favorites.

We stayed late, since my husband doesn't arrive back from his commute until near the end of the dinner anyway. Meg and Drew didn't want to leave. They had spent their after dinner time jumping while holding our hands off the stage at the front of fellowship hall. Eventually we gave them the five, two and one minute warnings and it was time to leave.

They didn't want to put on their coats. There is a phase of winter where kids are tired of coats and being zipped into them and Meg and Drew were in it. Eventually my husband and I asked if they wanted to trade coats. They did. So we bundled Drew and Meg up in our coats which were dragging on the floor and looking ridiculously cute. We stuck the hoods of their coats on our heads. When we got to the door we managed to convince them that we were going to get cold wearing their coats since they were way too small for us.

The pastors remembered this exchange so well that it was one the stories told at the funeral.

Meg rides a bike

It all started at the St. Jude's Trike-a-thon in late April.

One of the boys that is going off to kindergarten next year, A, rode his bike without training wheels at the Trike-a-thon. Meg didn't seem to notice. However our close friends' son P did and wanted to learn to ride without training wheels. So P, who is 5, took off his training wheels and with quite a lot of determination learned to ride without them. Shortly thereafter his older sister L, who is one of Meg's idols, learned to ride without training wheels too, at age 7.

Now Meg seeing that L and P had learned to ride without training wheels, insisted she could too. We took the bike we had bought last summer and took of the training wheels. This didn't work too well as Meg was getting too tall for the bike already. So after some thought we went to the second hand store and got her a larger bike. It didn't have training wheels. Meg insisted that we shouldn't put any on.

She would try to ride the bike with one of holding on to the back of the seat. Eventually, partially to save my husbands aching back, we moved to holding on to her lightly at about the armpits. She started being able to balance some herself in about a month. Back aches for both parents followed. Then one day while I was out my husband took her out and something clicked. She could ride short distances. The next day Meg could ride independently. The picture is from then. Thank goodness she is wearing a skort.


Yesterday we took a "bike ride" together. By which I mean, I rode my bike slowly, Meg rode her bike often in fits and starts, and daddy ran alongside making sure Meg was doing okay. Meg is still hesitant about starting up and gets panicked and forgets how to stop if she gets going too fast, but she is gaining confidence slowly but surely.

For my husband and I this is a time of pride, happiness, and bittersweetness. With every new thing Meg learns, we wonder, would Drew have been doing it now too?

Monday memory: the Zingo dance

We bought the kids Zingo as a present for either Christmas or their third birthday. When your kids are born the day after Christmas you sometimes can't remember which thing you decided to give on which day. Zingo was actually only rated for kinds 4 and older and they were turning three, but most games for three year olds are like candyland. The kids like them, but they are pretty dull for adults. We were hoping Zingo would be different.

Zingo was a hit. It is bingo with words and pictures. In the time between Christmas and New Years it was played by adults and kids of all ages. When Drew would win, he would dance around in a circle, pumping his arms up and down and singing "Zingo, zingo, zingo!". We called this the Zingo dance. Eventually it became a requirement that whomever won had to do the Zingo dance.

Meg will still do the Zingo dance when she wins at Zingo sometimes, but doesn't insist the other players do it. My husband and I still do in memory of Drew.