Tastes of Time Past

I put Ava to bed the other night and was listening to her babble to herself. I stood just outside her room as the light from the living room reached gently down the dark hallway. I was instantly snapped back to my own childhood. I pictured myself laying in my bed with my melon sheets wrapped all around me and my stuffed Snoopy as I lay in my single bed staring through the crack of light that slipped in through the door. Looking to the light, wondering what my father was doing in the living room and where my mom had tip toed of to. I felt myself tremble slightly. I must have been about 4 years old in this vision. It was vivid, but only a fragment. An overwhelming feeling fell over my adult self as i stood on the other side of the wall were my 2 year old daughter lay nestled in her crib. I couldn't help but wonder if other people experience memories like this, so crisp and clear that it almost feels like you are back in that very moment. I wondered if it is because I am raising my child in the house I was raised in. Even though many things have changed in this house I catch my self periodically slipping back into snapshots of my child hood. What ever it is, I am grateful for it. It brings with it a renewed understanding of what it was like to be a child. A feeling many of us so tragically lose. I hope that the newness of Ava, this house and being a green parent aren't the reasons I have these finite insights. I find comfort in these little glimpses. They help me as I trudge through this thing called parenting. I hope they come... and stay with the territory.