Tonight I was having one of those weepy “Mommy Moments” where I looked at Avery and just wanted to capture that moment forever. Her little, chubby, toddlerness is already going away and she’s becoming a preschooler.
For those without kids the terms “infant, baby, toddler, and preschooler” probably don’t mean a whole lot but for those of us watching our child go through the different stages it is both exciting and excrutiating. I wonder if I will forget her expressions and her curiousity and her adorable and clumsy way of moving as she becomes a more agile “big kid”. I wonder if I will always look at her and see the baby that I gave birth to. I’d be sad to forget but it’s bittersweet to remember.
There are moments when I just want to hold her close so that I never forget the way it feels to have her little body pressed against mine and to feel her baby kisses and hear the funny things she says and smell her sweet scent. Wow this is very sentimental. If I don’t stop I’m going to cry all over the keyboard. The hormones are making me crazy.
April 5th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
I look at Annika, and I don’t remember Leif at her age. I look at photos of him at 18 months, and I think I can remember him then, but I can’t remember anything distinctly before 18 months.
We have the odd video clip of him when he was littler. Somehow they seem strange, and not how my memory remembers him.
I think lots and lots of photos are our best hope of remembering anything of our kids’ childhoods. This is how I justify my exhorborant photography hobby! However, photographs don’t capture the entire memory.
The other day I was trying to nap, and the kids were playing with Greg. Their little voices were so cute, and I thought I would never forget the sound of them, but I will.
I read an old book last year. In it, a man’s teenage children die. He is convinced that if he goes to the island where they grew up and lived, he will somehow see them again. The years go by, and he is still waiting to see them. Then one day his 3-year-old grandson is playing in the ocean. All of the sudden he sees both of his children’s mannerisms in his grandson. He realizes that through his grandson he saw his children again.
Anyway, I think that’s interesting.
-You know who