Nostalgia

On Wednesday Ali and I went to the eye dr. A year ago, the pediatrician said Ali's eyes were 15/20, and, while it wasn't urgent, he might need glasses in the future. So, I finally took him in to see the eye dr. Mostly because we skipped over their annual physicals this year, and I figured I might as well take him for his free eye exam. Except, it wasn't free. When I called the new insurance company, they said I had a $40 copay. And the doctor's office said they couldn't even submit for Ali's insurance. Of course, they told me that AFTER the exam.
The good news was that Ali doesn't need glasses. His vision is 20/20. He was disappointed, but I told him I was very glad. "Because glasses are expensive," he said. No, I told him, because it's awful to wear glasses all the time and not be able to see. Remember how Harry Potter has to put on his glasses first thing in the morning? And when it rains they get wet, and we don't have an impervious charm.
Then we went to pick up Leila from our friend's house in our old neighborhood. Of course, Ali had to play for a while, too, and Sami had to crawl around and I had to have a cappucino. Then we stopped by our neighbors' house to pick up some mail she had called to say was there. I left the kids in the car, intending to run in for only a minute. Only, it turns out she didn't actually have the mail- it was still next door at our old house. I knocked on the door, petted Charlie*, the cat, while I waited, and got the bag of mail, but then the new owner had some questions. The stove had quit working- but she had just activated the "lock cooktop" function, so it was an easy fix. Then she gave me some things I'd left behind in a drawer, including some silver coffee spoons from my grandmother. That would have been a big loss.
I finally got back out to the car, where Ali told me- we've all been crying. It took me a moment, but then I realized the sniffles from the back seat were all about the old house and missing it. Poor babies. We talked for a minute, and then I turned on Harry Potter and we took our minds off the past.

* Charlie was our outdoor cat that was living under our deck when we moved into the house. We adopted him, but didn't let him stay inside once Leila was born because he made his displeasure known. When we moved, we didn't want to take him with us because he is so used to that neighborhood we thought he might get killed trying to make his way back. The new owners said they were happy to take him, and we were very thankful.