Life's Firsts

As I travel down life’s pathway,
Know not what the years may hold.
As I ponder, hopes grow fonder,
Precious memories flood my soul

Precious memories, how they linger
How they ever flood my soul.
In the stillness of the midnight,
Precious sacred scenes unfold. 

~ Bob Dylan, "Precious Memories"

It seems like we experience a "first" at least once a week, these days. Most of the time, these firsts are rather secondary, small events with low probability for ever becoming future major memories. Take, for example, Lila trying (and liking) shrimp for the very first time this past Friday night: "Ohh! I really like shrimp, Mom! I loooove it!" I begrudgingly happily handed over four-sixths of my platter of beloved shrimp cocktail to ensure her initial dive into the world of shellfish was a jumbo experience. Fast-forward to Lila's high-pitched scream as she caught sight of a record breaking, foot-long tiger shrimp on the local news yesterday. In HD. "I ate that? Did you know that's what shrimp looks like? How could you let me eat that? It looks like a monster!" What it looks like is more shrimp for Mommy... Yum.

Though AJ's been fishing before, on Saturday it was his first time to bait the hook, and to reel in not one, but seven fish on his very own. I so wish I could have been there. But alas, I was with my girl for what will be a forever memory to me ~ very hopefully one for her, too: Lila got her ears pierced.

She smiled all morning...

 

Pre-piercing Starbucks sustenance ~ 4/28/12 at 12:15pm

She knew which ones she wanted the second she saw them...

Who knew the "beautiful pink sparkly ones" are also the October (her & AJ's) birthstone?

Lila Bean was the biggest trouper. So silly and sweet and smiley throughout the whole deal...

Lila and Stripes, her constant companion these days

Directly following The Piercing, all she wanted was some ice cream and to take pictures with my camera. Here's the first photo she's ever taken on "the big camera"...

...and here's me in all of my close-up glory. (Yikes.) So, so proud of my brave and bedazzled daughter.

To punctuate a phenomenal weekend of firsts, we took our family on a maiden voyage to Beacon Bowl. As a seasoned roller (Yep, that's bowler to all of you unseasoned rollers out there.), I was just a bit taken aback with my pathetic score of 67. Hmm... Perhaps the "seasoned" pertained to the aforementioned shrimp and not the roller. *sigh*

Am I bitter about my four-year-old children scoring higher than me? Maybe. Did I secretly yearn for the Beacon Bowl employees to see through my pitcher-clenching angst and set up the bumpers for me? Yes. All of that aside, this evening of such a silly Biasi family first as rollin' was, and will forever be, unforgettable...

This week it's seafood, fishing, earrings, and bowling. Tomorrow it's a soccer tournament, learning to drive, the first kiss, graduation... And I welcome these unfolding scenes and memories with shrimp-loving, strike-free arms.

The greatest poem ever known
Is one all poets have outgrown:
The poetry, innate, untold,
Of being only four years old.
~ Christopher Morley, To a Child