Familiar

As a parent, do you sometimes feel like you're still a kid who just happens to also have kids?

I think being at my parents' house has made that feeling all too prevalent in my mind. My childhood memories of backyard barbecues, ping pong tournaments, my dad making home made ice cream (nothing like it), and heated volleyball games coming back to me with a quick glance at the back yard or a perusal through a photo album. I imagine my brother's first entrepreneurial Kool-aid stand or playing flashlight in our cul-de-sac or our weekly neighborhood game of frisbee tag. Suddenly I am four feet tall with a couple missing teeth aching for a red ten speed bike and a puppy until....

"MOMMY, he took my train....!" Reality quickly adds some height, teeth, a fear of dogs, and the health and well-being of two little munchkins.

Thinking about the past could not be complete without also remembering all the fights my siblings and I got into. Some funny, some serious, some involving minor injuries and even a few emergency department visits. My parents voices echoing in my head...

"What were you girls thinking? Somersaults off the top bunk?" or...

"Your brother has a chunk missing from his head. Any idea how that happened?" or...

"Your sister needed stitches. How exactly was she going to walk through that fence?"

When life and limb were not at stake, it was the old standbys....

"Because I said so." or....

"Well, if Suzy jumps off a cliff, are you going to jump too?" or...

"In my house, you follow my rules."

How many of us have heard those words? How many of us swore that "when I grow up, I am never going to say that to my kid?" How many of use at least one of those phrases daily? I guess there is a reason history repeats itself.