time capsule

It’s the beginning of a new decade, so my kids and I decided to make a atime capsule together. I meant to do this at the beginning of the year, but a few other things happened (like running a half marathon and getting stuck in Haiti during an earthquake and adding a new kids to our family. You know, minor distractions).

I thought it would be a fun project that they could open in ten years when they are 15, 13, and 10, and look back on some memories from their preschool days. In the year 2000, I bought a time capsule kit that Mark and I completed together. It was before we had kids, and we wrote that we couldn’t open it until 2015. Oh, how tempted I was to open it early! But I know it will be more fun (and mean more to the kids) in five years. So now, we will have one to open in 2015 and another to open in 2020. We are such dorks. And by we, I mean me. Mark is merely a helpless witness.

But for this year, I just purchased a plastic container from the hardware store. I filled it with some of the smaller memorabilia we had around the house. I put in their preschool pictures, a shot with santa, Jafta’s first team shirt, India’s birthday pom poms, Karis’s ultrasound pictures, and a copy of a shutterfly book I made for Keanan. Along with some other odds and ends, I also added an old cell phone, because I thought it would be funny to see how the technology has changed.

I also interviewed the kids to try to get a fun snapshot of what their interests are at this point in their life. I asked about favorite foods, favorite movies, and favorite pastimes. Here are a few of my favorite answers from Jafta:What are your favorite songs?”Beatle, the Backyardigans song . . . I used to like Do You Know Your Enemy (Green Day) but not anymore, because now I like a few more songs better. Like this song that goes like this: (starts humming the bass part of a White Stripes song). Bam bam, bam bam bam BAM BAM.”What are your favorite foods?”Medieval Times food, tortilla soup, and sushi, but not the spicy part where you put your finger in your mouth, but I’m gonna need to think about this more.”

What are your favorite movies?

“Transformers (he has never seen this), Star Wars (never seen it), Spiderman (nope, never seen it). And this one movie called How to Teach Dogs. it’s about a guy that, like, turns into an alien. And then there’s a guy that, like, turns into a dog. What a funny part.” (I believe this to be a completely made up movie)

“And Scary Vine. It has skeletons and vampires and mummies. And wolves. And coyotes. Ow-oooooooohhhhhhhh!” (I also believe this to be a fictional movie).

“And Wobble Snow. That’s where penguins dive into the water and there’s like a huge kind of whale that’s called a killer whale. There’s, like, snow that cracks and turns into a water. And then there’s a tiger that fights the penguin and then the killer whale eats them. It swims totally fast. It’s very disturbing. And there’s a type of fish that’s called an eagle fish. It has two sharp knives and it kills the penguins so they swim very fast and they go all the way down under water and make this noise: woierowier. It’s a funny part. You’re gonna wanna see this movie. And the like this guy that throws a ball at the penguins and he hits the water in his big army boat, with Lego guys underneath.”Okay, my guy is kind of a fibber. But I think it will be hilarious to read these answers to him when he is a teenager!