Vendredi V - Memory Lane Edition
Friday, June 12, 2009
I was going through some old pics this week and I realized once again what a terrible mother I am. Not "terrible" as in somebody call CFS but "terrible" as in sigh, yet another thing my kids will need therapy for.
This particular $150/hr session will deal with their disappointment in my failure to record important milestones. Oh, I've got baby books. But they're mostly blank. Ask me when the first teeth came or when they started walking, and I haven't a clue. When did they start sleeping through the night? Darned if I know.
Basically from the moment the doctor unhinged my entire existence by declaring "It's a Girl!", parenting has been a blur. Who has time to lovingly craft scrapbooks and painstakingly write down each spoonful of peas and each successful trip to the potty when one barely has enough brain cells to remember to wear matching shoes?
Thank goodness for pictures, then. They jog my memory and bring moments from that blur into sharp focus. They remind me of:
Top 5 Things I've Forgotten About My Munchkins:
1. They once grew inside me. I can barely remember pregnancy. I mostly remember being tired. I also remember sitting in the bathtub in my final days (which I thought were my final weeks), watching my stomach heave as my baby moved. I'm pretty sure I could see an elbow work its way across my belly.
2. The Boy was so fat. Seriously, if you would have told me that when he was in kindergarten I'd be looking for the "slim" jeans and being thankful for those elastic waist-cincher thingeys, I wouldn't have believed you. He almost doubled his weight by the time he was two months, and he spent most of his first year entirely off the charts. I remember how excited we were when he got back on them and was only 99th percentile!
3. They've always been two peas in a pod. They often seem so different - the one is all caped crusader craziness and the other is intense artistic emo. But really, when you get down to it, they're cut from the same cloth.
4. She's not always angry. She can be so intense, that sometimes all I remember are the storms. But the calm times in between are so sunny, they make up for it.
5. No really, he was SO fat.
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3 comments:
I'm so glad someone else didn't record the first teeth, the first steps, the first haircut!
And yes, The Boy definitely was off the charts when he was a baby, I remember seeing pics of him. :)
Cute.
Mmm, it's flying by too fast. I often feel bad about my absence during those early years. Heck, who am I kidding? I still feel bad about my absence, even now. I wish I were able to conjur up pictoral mind-memories of sweet Emma when she was so small. Though, my heart still holds firm to the memory of the day I spent "babysitting" at P&V's, when Henry was THAT fat and Emma wanted to watch Treehouse all day long. The circumstances sucked, but I am so glad to have had that day. Anyway, I'm lifting up my glass of Keen's homemade brew in celebration that someone else doesn't believe in baby books! Maybe Ellie can get in on that counseling session and they could split it three-ways? Love you!
I know you are an amazing mother because you gave me some of the best advice a new mom could hear. During that first year of uncertainties, you told me that all I really need to worry about was whether he was eating and maybe change his diaper every now and then. The rest would fall into place. Amazingly enough, you were right.
Thanks for the sweet journey down memory lane with your kids. You're right. The boy was *large*.
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