Let me tell you a story...

About a woman and a man... an..annn.n.
Maybe you're not too familiar!
Maybe you won't understand.

Oh sorry! I think I get the horrible habit of spontaneously breaking into song, specifically Billy Joel songs, at the drop of the hat from my husband...

Anyway - the story isn't about a woman and a man. It's about a phone system. Yeah! You knew I was getting to a phone, didn't you!? My mind works like that...

At my last employer, where I worked for 16+ years, I had a LOT of history. My husband still works there. I gave birth (* not there!!! or I would have claimed the expenses under workmens comp.*) to three kids while working there. A co-worker across the hall wanted to draw my giant pregnant silhouette on my office door in chalk. He's a little strange, not just because of that but he keeps a life-sized cutout of Elvira behind his office door... But that's for another story...

When my darling 15 yo daughter was a baby, she didn't talk around me. She said words for my husband and I didn't believe him, as he's a kidder and a spontaneous songster.... I think she didn't speak around me because she was just enthralled with my beauty and just loved to gaze at me adoringly, as children do.

So one day while I was grocery shopping and he was home with the then two kids, he and Maddy left my office phone a voice mail.

Say Mama! Mama
Say carrot! carrot
Say Gail! Gail (her babysitter)
Say Daddy! Dadda

When I got to work on Monday, I had the best surprise a mom could ask for! My little girls first words recorded for all time! and I could listen to it whenever I wanted! When I was having a rough day at work, I'd tune in. I had that sweet little message in my voice mail for over 5 years saved.

Then one day....

Our office phone system crashed...

And we found out that there were no backups of it...

I think I cried spontaneously (yep - I've used that word 3 times so far in this post!) off and on for a long long time whenever I thought about my loss. Maddy was 5 or six by that time and felt such sadness for me. So one day, Robb and her got on the phone and recreated it into my voice mail. Hearing her little voice with a slight speech impediment trying to sound like a baby was so sweet, of course I saved that!

Many years later I left that job and started working for a different company from a home office. Before my old employer could erase my old voice mails, I got a microphone and saved them as .wav files on my home computer. There are some where my son is speaking with a Pirate/Scottish accent and calling me Me Lass..

.

Some where Meri is learning to talk and Maddy coached her to do a repeat of her first message to me. Maddy loved leaving me those types of messages, so I've got a lot of those. Or my MIL calling so Meri could tell me she went potty...

So Robb likes to swap things out on my home computer periodically to keep it fast and working well. Once when the harddrive crashed, he missed the folder that had those on it. He had saved the old harddrive and kept meaning to hook it back up and try to retrieve it, but hadn't gotten around to it for a long time.

Anyways... We're headed to a wedding this weekend and he wanted the harddrive for my sisters computer. So yesterday my computer got my old precious .wav files back and Meri, Maddy and I listened and laughed! It's just a snippet of their past but it brings it all back with such a rush!

Maddy said, "I remember that day! I really thought Katy was pregnant!" She had called once to tell me that our *fixed* dog was pregnant because all she did was lay around and sleep. I think she may have learned what pregnant women act like... due to me...