Every year Kev and I use a portion of our tax return to buy something fun. The majority goes into savings and other such financially responsible places, but we like to enjoy a little as well. Over the years we have gotten a couch, a refrigerator, a washer and dryer, a nice sized chest freezer, and last year we payed hospital and doctor bills associated with Matthew's birth. Some of these purchases were necessities (the refrigerator, Matthew). Some were practical (the washer and dryer, the freezer). And some were just really nice (the couch). This year's purchase falls into the very nice category. We purchased a bedroom set and I am very excited to have grown up furniture. Our bedroom is no longer decorated in Impoverished American Eclectic. Everything actually matches. I know it is a little bit pathetic that what makes me feel like an adult is not the fact that I am a married college graduate with three children, but the fact that I have matching furniture. It is just a really big step up from the mentally that furnishes college apartments: "It's where? On the curb? And the sign says it's free? Cool!"While we were getting everything set up, I had a flashback to my youth. My parents inherited a rickety old queen-sized spindle bed when my Grandma Barney moved into a retirement home. It was just about the best bed I had ever seen in my life. My siblings and I had a ton of fun with that bed. We would stand on the top of the headboard, recite some kind of chant (Originally I thought it was London Bridge because it makes sense with the "falling down" and all that. However, I'm now having a vague memory that has to do with the Statue of Liberty.), and then let ourselves fall, face first, keeping our bodies as straight as possible, onto the bed. We would bounce like crazy and once we came to a stop, we would scoot out of the way to avoid being pommeled when the next person came down. It was enormously fun . . . and enormously off limits as far as Mom was concerned. This is, of course, one of those stories I won't tell my children until they are capable of purchasing their own furniture and paying their own hospital bills when they crack their heads open playing on it. Sigh. That was a very "boring grown up" thing to say. So maybe I am an adult after all.
Amendment: Patti tells me that it was definitely something to do with the Statue of Liberty. As I think more about it, I seem to recall something like this: "The Statue of Liberty stands so tall. The Statue of Liberty starts to fall." Pretty lame, huh? I wonder who thought that one up.
