SEALED WITH A KISS

I've been slowly chipping away at sorting through "stuff" at Mama Bore's house, which is now officially for sale. Mom is not a hoarder, but she's what I like to call a "chronic saver." Last night I attacked three boxes of greeting cards, sorting them by the "child giver or receiver" who will each get his/her stack for posterity's sake. Birthday, Mother's Day, Christmas, Easter, Congrats on the Birth of Your Child.

These baby cards are most interesting because they are totally generic. Unless the sender has written something that specifies the gender, you'd have no idea whether the baby was a girl or boy. ALL the cards have pink AND blue on them, so color is no clue. This must have been some sort of marketing ploy in the 1940s and '50s.

There were only four cards that I was certain about the identity of the child who was being welcomed because of little clues written inside. "Congratulations on your first" is for Big Sis. "His father must be so proud of the name" is for Beans, who is a III to the ol' man's Jr. Then there's "He's half-grown already" for my younger brother, a 9-pounder; and "Number 5" for my younger sister. Me? Who knows. Who cares. Middle children are always lost in the shuffle--even with greeting cards.

I just ended up putting all the remaining birth congrats cards in the "other" stack, which is huge. Next time I visit Mama Bore, I'm going to take her the stack from me and the stack of "others," which were sent by her friends, and start reading them to her since she can no longer see well enough to do so. I don't care what my siblings do with their stacks I give them. At least there are three fewer boxes in the house. Now, I'm psyching myself up for her box of cancelled checks from the past 40 years.