before my memory started

My dad has been on a crazy photo-archiving kick for the past few months. He's gone through a couple thousand old photos of our family and scanned them in to a Picasa album. Well, several albums at this point. Now he's gotten to some old 35mm slides from the early 80s, when he and my mom were living in Singapore and my sister and I were born. Some of these photos I've never seen before! There's a pic of my mom walking our old white poodle, Maggie, pregnant with me under a billowy blue dress. Then there are pics of 1-year-old toddler me doing various things like playing piano, holding a squash raquet, walking Maggie with a red leash, carrying around this blanket that I refused to give up for I-don't-want-to-admit-how-many years. I've seen baby pictures of myself before, obviously, but the ones that really strike me are those of my mom holding me, or taking me places that I no longer remember. Like a shot of Mom and me and baby Kim, sitting on a picnic blanket in a grassy field in Singapore surrounded by peacocks...! Or a family pic of my parents and Maggie and me, before I had any siblings. My mom looks so beautiful, with eyeliner and crazy-patterned dresses. I wonder if she felt scared, having her first baby in a foreign country with no family around, and I'm sure my dad was working long hours as he always did. Now I really want to call her. She really is the best mom in the world, and I've told people this - often they try to challenge me, but nobody's proven me wrong yet. I guess I've gotten used to living on the opposite side of the country from her, but I should really make an effort to call her more often. I'm the worst at calling people. But my top priority should be Mom!