A Writer Was Born

When my kids were little I stayed home with them, often with other daycare kids in the house. I always had the videocamera ”” the huge behemoth that rested on your shoulder ”” locked and loaded.

I also had index cards and pens placed strategically around the house. On them, I wrote the funny things the kids said and did. At the end of the day, the index cards would get shoved into the appropriate diaper bags of my daycare charges or thrown into my kids’ “Memory Boxes.”

Some mothers lovingly craft scrapbooks for their children. I lovingly crafted piles of index cards.

I’ve recently undertaken the task of typing them up. Surely there’s a book just waiting to be written. Here are two samples.

12-5-90 ”” Jessie [age 3] made the astute observation that you can’t hum with your mouth open.

12-12-90 ”” Jessie said something was “a propersation.”  When Wes asked her what that was, she said, “It’s Batman or grass or tea or soup.”

That was my first inkling I was raising a writer.

When did you know what kind of kid you were raising?