Then and Now

by Heather Strenzwilk

This morning my three-year-old daughter was "ice skating." Her skates were glossy, hard cover Little Golden Books. She places her feet on them and pushes her way around the house exclaiming loudly, "I skating Mommy- Look at me!"

I used to do the same thing with Little Golden Books.

Eventually she slides too much, falls down and cries. Not crying in the "oh I'm hurt" manner but rather the "ouch, I fell down can I have some attention because my pride is hurt" kind of crying.

A long time later (10 minutes) she tells me she wants to use a glue stick. Over the summer we made collages with images torn from magazines and catalogs, which she remembers. "Please mommy?" she asks, tugging on my leg as I sit typing on the computer.

When I go to gather the supplies, I reflect back on my mom and me. We would sit for hours at the kitchen table and make dollhouses. Our dollhouses were shirt boxes from the local department store. Inside them we would paste pictures of people and household objects. I don't remember if she let me use the glue, but I remember the pride I felt as I looked at my finished dollhouse.

A few weeks ago my family was at the local supermarket near suppertime. My husband wanted a loaf of French bread, so he and our daughter stood in the crowd of eager shoppers swarming on the bakery to await the batch of hot bread. I dashed down a nearby aisle to grab a few staples.

By the time I got back to the bakery, my husband was the proud owner of a loaf of hot bread and my daughter was thoroughly enjoying a chocolate chip cookie.

How many Sunday mornings in my childhood had my father taken me to the Italian bakery in the city? Our quest was bread but the counterman at the bakery always gave me a cookie to enjoy in the car. I no longer remember the bread or what the bakery looked like, but I do remember eating my large cookie and occasionally my father would steal a bit, just to make sure it tasted OK.

After we dropped off the bread at home, he and I would walk to the canal near our house. Back then there was a crude, unpaved path running along its edge. My favorite thing was to pick up a rock and throw it into the water. Plunk. Plunk. We would watch the ripples and my dad would try to find a flat rock so he could skip it along the surface of the murky brown water. To this day I can't skip a rock, but I still love to watch him do it.

When my father visited us last month, we took my daughter to the local shopping mall. As I power shopped with my mother, he entertained his granddaughter. Before we split up, I slipped him a handful of pennies.

Plink. Plink. Plink. He taught her to aim the pennies at a metal sculpture in the fountain. Out of seven pennies she hit it once (she's inherited her mother's athletic abilities).

My dad called her my name by mistake and reminded me of all the times we threw rocks into the canal. Like I needed him to remind me.