Take Your Vitamins Every Day

Reagan's Nai Nai (my mom) is really into vitamins. She has a tray (which I would use for breakfast in bed if it were mine) that lives on her kitchen counter. Every inch of it is covered in pill bottles and we have no pharmacists in the family. Short ones, tall ones, fat ones and they all fix something or build something or make something function better. She takes her vitamins and supplements daily at breakfast. When she travels, she carries her beloved supply in a big Ziploc bag and proceeds to spread them out and take inventory whenever given the opportunity.

During our Christmas visit, Reagan spent several mornings quizzing Nai Nai about vitamins in general--their individual purposes, tastes, colors and size. Nai Nai explained them as she downed them. Reagan watched in fascination.

At home Reagan eats her own vitamin each morning in the shapes of Bam Bam, Pebbles or Dino. I swallow one of the Flintstones down myself now and then for good measure and a little trip down memory lane.

I had no idea how much of an effect those vitamins had on Reagan until this morning. We were stir crazy. I suggested shopping and Reagan jumped up, nodding her head vigorously. "Yes, please!"

We headed to Walgreens and perused the aisles picking up chapstick, toothpaste and cheese sticks along the way. We made our way down the vitamin aisle purely because I wasn't yet ready to go back into the cold outdoors. At once Reagan starts bouncing around in the cart. She leaned this way and that, spinning her neck around like a demon-possessed kid in a B movie.

"Where Nai Nai? Where Nai Nai go? Nai Nai here!!" I couldn't figure it out. We hadn't even been discussing my mother. Now Reagan was leaning toward the shelves...the shelves of vitamins. She pointed and reached and pointed some more because her mother isn't the sharpest crayon in the box.

"Nai Nai's vitamins! Nai Nai here with vitamins!" And she was right. We were in Nai Nai's Utopia, the vitamin aisle. We were surrounded by brown bottles and giant letters like E, D and A. I explained to Reagan that Nai Nai was in Colorado with Papa and that other people in the world take vitamins, too. (Though, knowing the size of my mom's collection, I appreciate Reagan's opinion that all the vitamins known to humankind are Nai Nai's).

She was disappointed to say the least. We headed for checkout in silence and on the way out to the car, Reagan leaned in to me to protect herself from the wind. She whispered in my ear one more time, "Nai Nai's vitamins in there."