Jello Memories

In my last blog post I wrote about making new memories.  I think one of the things I love most about making new memories with Lilly is how it often brings me back to my own childhood memories.  I am pretty darn lucky that my memories are so wonderful.  I know how blessed I am to have had such a childhood because I work with children who do not always have good memories.  Or their good memories are so far from how I define good that it saddens me.  While I know that my childhood was not perfect, I have very few bad memories.

Yesterday I was making jello with Lilly.  A few years ago I tried making it but she refused to eat it.  I ended up eating an entire pan of orange jello.  It was more than a little sickening.   She has now decided that she likes jello.  She picked out grape (hello, purple!) and raspberry lemonade or some such newfangled flavor.  She was very excited to make it with me.  I obviously stirred it initially since it requires adding boiling water, but then she helped stir the jello powder until it disolved.  We talked about how it would not be ready until tomorrow (today) which is why we made it at night.

Waiting is a hard thing for kids.  Scratch that, waiting is hard!   Lilly was pretty okay with it.  She understands what finished jello looks like so she knew that this was NOT finished.  Without telling her what I was doing, I got out a spoon and scooped a bit of the cooled jello mixture just before I put it in the fridge.  I told her that this is what Nanny used to do for me and I gave her a taste.  It brought me right back to 188 aka Nanny's house, where she would give me a little taste of the not-yet-ready jello from the fridge.  Watching Lilly's face light up at the taste of the warm liquidy goodness was fun.  Watching her smile as she thought of me as Nanny's little granddaughter was priceless.

And you know what?  Knowing that I look back and see the good memories gives me hope that Lilly, too, will someday look back and see only the good, and forgive me for my mom-mistakes.