Creepy Keepsakes
We moved to a new house recently and it all happened so fast that truly things were tossed into boxes helter skelter. By the end of the packing I’d stopped labeling, a rookie moving mistake. I’ve run out of labeled boxes to methodically unpack, and now get to groan or squeal, based on what I find when I open a box. The other day a girlfriend was coming over to get boxes for herupcoming move, and I legit dumped a box of mismatched toddler and preschool socks that I don’t know what to do with because they aren’t sorted and I would rather perch on a spike with only my arm strength to prevent my butt getting pierced than go through kids’ socks again.
Anyhoo, a couple of baby mementos fell out onto the mound of mismatched mess, including a precious tiny blue and white box and a random plastic bag of black baby hair labeled ‘Alexander’. I knew what the box was instantly, even though it wasn’t helpfully monikered with a kid name, and as I haven’t attempted baby memento organizing or books of any kind since the first one (That is just not my thing. I have other strengths. Like hoarding socks.) I knew it was Ben’s. I opened the little box, half expecting it to be empty, but no, there was a little tooth in there. The first tooth Ben ever lost, when he was six, because my family does teeth related things a little later than average. I sort of cringed at it and quickly closed the box and looked around to make sure none of the kids were in the room. That tooth was supposed to go with the tooth fairy. We as yet believe in all the mythical creatures in my home, and my almost 8 year old still thinks that ninja/wizard/minecraft characters named Steve represent models of viable career options for him when he grows up. I tucked the box away in the back of one of my dresser drawers. He can find it when he’s 13 and rifling through my drawers for money. Hopefully he doesn’t still believe in the tooth fairy at that point, although the shock will be all the greater if he does!
I didn’t think much about it at the time, until a few weeks later when a friend of mine’s daughter had to have surgery to remove beads from her ears. I thought it was because she was ultra sensitive when the doc was trying to get them out in the regular office, not the OR, and she IS ultra sensitive….but the beads were huge. Like, mammoth orbs. I can’t even imagine how she got them so far in they had to be removed by instruments. I’d be hard pressed to shove them into my adult sized ears, as cute and dainty as they are. Andre the Giant would have had trouble getting these suckers all the way in. It was at once impressive and appalling. So we’re all group texting the morning of the poor sweetheart’s surgery, because my girls are clutch in an emergency, and emergency bead-removing ear surgery is no joke, with full anesthesia and everything. This is the text conversation that followed (please enjoy the high-tech editing and fuzzy quality of the following pictures)
But, seriously. WHY DO WE DO THIS? I needed to know. So I started some very scientific (read: google) research. According to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, people used to save their family members’ hair for lots of different reasons across lifespans, including as a romantic gesture, or if they were sick, or just missed someone far away. They’d send them some hair. I guess because there weren’t cameras? People wanted something tangible from their family member who was going to die or they never got to see- or a baby who was going to grow and change forever and there would never be that particular baby again in the world. (I find this highly relatable).
None of that explains the pee sticks. Feel free to judge, but kindly, because we’re sensitive around here.