Desk

I cleared my desk today. It was raining, thunder was rolling, so I turned off the computer and the Internet box, and cleaned the desk.

It is an old desk. Its writing surface folds up, closing the desk, and a lot of things get tossed in there, out of sight, to deal with later, important to keep but I don't have a place for it yet, and so on. I found...

Thank you notes for Monkey1's birthday last year, when she turned six. We had taken a picture of her enjoying each gift, pasted the photo on a card, she wrote "Thank you" on each one, and we had started to address envelopes but had stopped because I had needed to find snail mail addresses.

Eldon cards for home blood typing everyone. We had the midwife do Monkey3 at birth, but somehow the other Monkeys disappeared at that point.

A photo from a silent ultrasound.

Monkey1's kindergarten report card.

Monkey2's tie buddies. Maybe I should put them on her shoes again, see if she's ready to tie her shoes. Oh wait, she has velcro.

School pictures taken last September. I was going to send them out in the Christmas cards, put off the Christmas cards until St. Patrick's Day, then sent birth announcement postcards in April. I studied the portraits. Monkey1 has changed so much during first grade!

Photos from Monkey2's preschool teacher, taken two years ago when Monkey1 was in her class. The pictures include several younger siblings, such as Monkey2, who were all about three years old and will attend kindergarten together next year. I don't know what to do with actual photos. I don't keep albums, I don't even keep a shoe box of random photos, I keep digital files.

Photo keepsakes generated from a visit to NASA Goddard last summer.

Two identical packs of Christmas note cards, given to me two different years.

A deck of playing cards, confiscated from the Monkeys after too many games of 52 Pick-Up.

Booklets of activities and classes available from the city's recreation department, last summer, last fall, and last winter.

A plastic horse with a broken leg. I superglued it, again.

Since it was finally clear, I sat down and used the desk to write a few notes to go with the tardy school photos and finished up by polishing the wood. When the Monkeys got home from school, they were fascinated by the gleaming surface and cubbies of note paper and envelopes.

Next rainy day, tackle all the drawers.