Rewind/Fast Forward

[Lee and I took the babies up to North Carolina for a long weekend this past weekend-- another one of my crazy, do-everything-see-everyone kind of road trips, except this time we decided on one central location (Raleigh) and worked out our visits from there. When you have to drive 8+ hours to see anyone who knew you before age 23, every trip turns into sort of a circus. But a good circus. A necessary circus. 
Also, my camera battery died. And I lost the charger. So this is the part of the trip where I had resorted to my phone camera.]

See this? This is my baby on Franklin Street. Actually it's my baby on her Daddy's back on Franklin Street. Mary Bullock's FPE [favorite person ever] Molly just started UNC Law on Monday, so we spent Saturday with her and Uncle Derbs walking around campus, showing MB the sights. See the dark cloud to the right? That's Hurricane Irene. Thankfully, that's as bad as it got in Chapel Hill.

I haven't spent a lot of time in Chapel Hill since I graduated, mostly because I've lived so far away and am not a huge sports fan, so I don't go home for many games. It was strange to walk around campus after so much time had passed, and with my own children. In some ways it felt like nothing had changed [although a lot has changed on campus]. I walked by certain places on campus and recalled specific incidents-- like, getting my books my first semester freshman year and sitting down in The Pit with the box, so freaking excited. Or being in the undergraduate library, pestering Rachel to help me cram for an Econ class I'd only been to twice. It was odd how much came back to me after 15 years-- parts of college I loved, parts I was tortured by [Astronomy- the worst], and parts the older me would have done very differently.

Of course, if Lee has his way, MB won't be spending her college years in Chapel Hill, but wherever she is, at some point, hopefully, she'll be in a dorm room far away from her mama. I'm sure I'll cry dropping her off, just as my mother did. I'm sure she'll make some mistakes, just as I did.

But dear baby, if there is an Old Well, and drinking from it will get you all As, my advice is this:
DRINK FROM IT.  Especially if you only plan to attend your Econ class for the month of August.

This is Mary Bullock pouting because she wanted to go to WATE FOWEST. I think she was coached.