Remember When ↠ l.p.

Another family

"Why are we doing this mommy?" Caitlyn asks, looking up at me from the floor. I'm curently standing on the dining room table so I can hang up decorations from the ceiling.

"Don't move the table please!" I remind her as I see her hand reaching for the rim of the table. "And for the fourth time, we're having a party for Uncle Lou before leaves tomorrow."

"But why?" she asks again, thankfully her hand moving away from the table to fiddle with a strand of hair hanging by her ear. She's begun insisting to have a Elsa braid in her hair. We've been rewatching some of the older princess movies, starting with Snow White and working our way up. We're up to 2013? 2014? I can't remember. We've seemed to have gotten stuck there unfortunately as the girls want nothing more than to watch Frozen over and over again. I had enough of that movie when my younger cousin was obsessed with and wanted to watch it every time she visited. Not that it's a particularly bad movie, but there is only so many times you can watch it without being pushed to your limit. I'm not even sure why Cailyn has gotten so addicted, usually it's the movie with or about animals that spark her attention.

"Because he's going away and we'll miss him." I remind her. Mother says that all children are like this at this age, they repeat things, from questions to meals to what books are read to them before bed. She told me that I was the same way, that'd I would watch the same movies over and over again and play the same tapes over and over again. I don't remember doing that, but I suppose she would remember better than I would.

"Why is he going away?" Cailyn walks around the table, bumping her hand on each of the chairs as she circles it. "I thought he was going to live with us too. Like Tessie."

"Where is Tessie mi hija?" I pause from hanging up the streamer I'm currently working on to glance around the room to make sure she's not standing by the wall somewhere. Sometimes she will just stand there quietly and watch things instead of joining in. "I don't think I've seen her in a while."

"She's looking at a book or colorin," Cailyn stops in the middle to make a lovely curtsey to me. "she was still deciding when I came here to you. I can go ask her what she's doing if you wanna make me." she frowns up at me, making it perfectly clear she doesn't want to do so.

"Oh well it's not that important. I'm sure she's fine. She likes playing by herself doesn't she?"

"She likes playing with me too mommy." Cailyn reminds me. "And why isn't Uncle Lou staying to live with us?"

I sigh and climb down from the table carefully. I've gotten all the streamers I made hung and now my arms are aching from holding them up for so long. "Uncle Lou can't stay and live with us you silly thing. He has to go back home to his own family and his own house."

"He has a family?!" Cailyn looks shocked that she didn't know this. "When did that happen?" She raises her hands up to her mouth and covers the bottom half of her face in an effort to look aghast. I raise an eyebrow, she must have seen something like this on TV. I lean down and pull her hands away, putting an empty box in them instead and turning her so she's facing the trash can.

"Here, help me clean up really quickly and then I'll explain it all." I gather up what's left my arts and crafts project (i.e. the homemade decorations) and try to remember where I've left the scissors. Mother has really stressed the importance of keeping them up high and out of the girls' reach. She's told me horror stories of hair cuts and cut clothing. "Get these little scraps of paper on your next trip please," I ask Cailyn. "I'm going to put these supplies up and check on Tessie. Then we'll meet up in the living room. Deal?"

"Deal!" she agrees as she hurries to finish her task. I double check that Tessie is fine, she's contentedly reading to one of her dolls and barely looks up when I poke my head in. Things have gone very smoothly with her moving in, not that I'm surprised. She has been over here so often it probably already felt close to home. I enter the living room to find Cailyn waiting impatiently. She beckons me over to the couch and to hurry.

"Alright, alright, what do you want to know. All about Uncle Lou's family?" I ask, thinking nothing of how serious she is about the whole thing. At least not until she's starts crying, a tear trickling down her cheek as she gasps raggedly.

"Yeah," she chokes out, "what kind of family is he leaving us to go to? Are there more little girls? Does he love them more than me an Tessie!?"