This shirt represents an interesting time of my life. When I was 36 weeks pregnant with Sophia, and Caroline and Elizabeth had just turned two, we moved from Idaho to Carson City, Nevada for Bill's job. Right after Sophia was born, David came to live with us and that was a dream come true for me.
Unfortunately, Bill's job ended unexpectedly in the early Fall, but he immediately got a job in New Mexico. Problem was, David had just started his Senior year of high school and I wouldn't even think about taking him out right after he'd started at a new school. So Bill headed off to New Mexico, leaving me in Carson City with a teenager, twin two-year olds, and a new baby.
It didn't really seem too hard at the time, but I knew I had a lot of stress taking care of everything and making the budget stretch to cover two households. Except for David who has always been good company, and phone calls/occasional visits from Bill, I was pretty lonely.
There was a small park about a ten minute walk from the house that I used to push the stroller to often. It had low equipment that was perfect for my small daughters. One day about ten mothers showed up with their little children. I found out they were part of a mothers' club and they invited me to join.
I had never joined a community group like this, but I was very disappointed with the one the church ladies had organized, so I decided to join.
It was not long before we moved, but I remember going to other parks, going horseback riding, going to an interesting book presentation sponsored by PBS, and going on a field trip to Cinderlite.
Yes, a children's field trip to a gravel yard.
The tour guides had obviously done this many times because they knew the right stories to tell, the right place to stop so the children could play on a thirty foot pile of gravel, and so forth. The last part of the excursion was a trip to the scales with a prize for the mother who could guess the total weight of the truck, trailer, and all of us. I happen to excel at down-and-dirty mental math and came up with a very close number that won me this Cinderlite T shirt.
It was *way* too large for any of my girls, so I folded it up and put it in their drawer. Eventually Caroline was big enough for it, then Elizabeth, and finally Sophia. Every time I saw it on them it reminded me of "making it" on my own in Carson City (with financial support from Bill, of course ;-) ), of meeting really nice people in an unexpected place, of the pleasure of having David at home that year, and of having my three little girls.
See why I'm a little sad it's been outgrown?
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