A few weeks ago I found my precious box of home videos while tidying under my bed (read: pulling out the old tissues, clumps of dust and random items shoved under there during a 'clean-up').
Rather than arranging them neatly and putting them somewhere appropriate, I perched on the edge of my (unmade) bed and began looking at them. Somewhere along the way, I rediscovered my babies (and lost several hours).
There were the messages we made for each child while still in my tummy. There were precious minutes captured of each newborn, most likely between those interminably long feeding sessions that delineate the first few weeks of a new baby's life. There were first smiles, breathy little oohs and aahs encouraged for the camera. Rolling over. Crawling backwards. Bum-shuffling. First steps. Birthdays. Christmases. Random little vignettes that were simply captured because the camera was at hand.
They were so, so little. And so very gorgeous. It was magical, watching my babies grow up through the tiny lumps of time captured on tape.
But it was also a tiny bit sad.
Watching these pieces of my children's lives, I realised how much I have forgotten. And yes, I understand how pathetic I must sound right now. I also know how lucky I am to have children to video at all. I know that if we spent our lives recording every event to watch later, we'd miss out on life altogether...but I still wish I could remember it all. Stupid, I know.
I suppose it's Life's Big Filtering System, really, isn't it? Actually, now that I come to think about it, forgetting the minutiae of parenting is probably an evolutionary survival mechanism, honed over thousands of years of wiping bums.
Watching my old video tapes, I can see the enormous jowls that Jack developed after breastfeeding every two hours. I am reminded of his Leo-Sayer-esque hair at age two - huge, bouncy, ginger-hued curls that were the envy of many a little girl at playgroup. I remember how much he adored trains, and the Wiggles, and his baby sister. I remember how I used to find him on his "naughty stool", just sitting there, biding his time until he decided that he had done his penance. He would cheerfully tell me what he had done 'wrong'. I had a very hard time not laughing at his self-discipline.
I don't remember much about Jack's monumental temper tantrums at age 3. I don't remember the months when he would refuse to go to sleep at night. I don't remember how terrible it was, each and every time he had a new tooth come through. I don't accurately recall his phenomenal bouts of vomitting, his reflux, his eczema. I am so glad not to remember his toilet-training phase. Oh, the trauma of opening his kinder bag at the end of a working day, to discover how many pairs of soiled undies that needed to be dealt with. Motherhood at its' finest.
Moving on to other tapes, I find a smiling, chubby little baby Phoebe - the Baby Who Never Cried. What a little doll she was. I always feel particularly guilty about the black hole that is there instead of memories of Phoebs as a baby...but I suppose that's post-natal depression for you? What I do remember though, is golden - Phoebe's obsession with our cat 'Nernie'; her sheer relief when I finally gave her solids at four months instead of horrible milk; her funny little one-knee-bent-forward-bum-shuffle that allowed her to "crawl" while still talking to us face-to-face; her painless teething and toilet-training; her wispy fairy-floss hair that has only now begun to grow in earnest. How there was one night, when she was about 6 months old and she just wouldn't sleep. I distinctly remember telling myself to relish the sensation of having her fall asleep in my arms, because very soon she would be too big to hold for that long. How I rocked her, and rocked her, and her entire body relaxed and curled around mine, while her breathing calmed. How I stood there, for another 30 mins, simply rocking and humming, for the sheer pleasure of holding my sleeping baby while I could. How, when she was about 18 months old - maybe 20 months? - she did something naughty and I asked her to come to me. I counted to three. She looked me dead in the eye and said slowly, "four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten", and then walked over to me, while Christian shook with laughter and mouthed at me, "Did you know she could count to ten?" Point made, Phoebs. Cheers.
Sometimes, I look at my daughter and wonder how on earth she will be five in a few weeks. I have forgotten her toddler tanties. Her refusal to eat anything at dinner time. Her determination to convince everyone that she and Jack are in fact, twins. I have tried hard to forget how she broke her nose, aged 2, jumping on the bed, but memories like that are hard to erase. Especially when she did it with a week-old baby sister in the house, and a Daddy who had had heart surgery only 24 hours prior. Fun times.
Being Baby #3, there are fewer videos of the Mouse. Still, it makes me gasp to see how small she was when we brought her home...and how little Jack and Phoebs were too. I can vaguely recall her wispy mullet and her folded-up froggy legs, but only the video can help me recall the squeaky little mouse noises she used to make when beginning to wake. Watching footage of the Mouse, aged a few weeks old, I can recall the heat of the summer, the hum of the ever-present air-conditioner, the small weight of my babe in arms. The theme song of Waybuloo can transport me back to the gentle days of a three year old Jack, a two year old Phoebalina, and a newborn, snuffly little Mouse. I suppose, being the most recent bub, time has not yet erased my unprompted memories of my baby Maisie. On the rare occasion that she falls asleep on me now, I can catch a glimpse of my tiny baby...but only for a second. It's just nice to know that my last little bubba is still there, tucked inside the body of a two-year-old teenager.
I know that, eventually the edges of my memory of this time will go fuzzy. The daily screeching and battle of wills that we are enduring with Miss Mouse will fade. I won't need to use the naughty step on a daily basis (fruitlessly, it often feels). I won't recall the round-and-round conversations in which I might ask my youngest child, "Would you like some lunch?", to which she screams her reply, "No!" At which point I say, "Ok, then, it's time for bed." To which she replies, "No!" "They're your two choices, Mais. Lunch or bed." "No! No! No!" And so on, and so forth. Sigh. In years to come, I will desperately try to recall the mumbly baby-talk 'conversations' that I have with Maisie - those long-winded sentences that end with one or two recognisable words, but are given in such an enthusiastic manner, you can't help but laugh and join in.
I watched my kids playing this morning, and I thought, I won't remember this day. This particular Sunday, just like so many before and after it, will be swallowed up by my brain. Being an ordinary day, there is no reason to video it. So after a while, I will not remember my girls flitting around in fairy dresses (Maisie trying on three before being satisfied with her fairyness) and dancing with each other, just like Hermione and Viktor Krum in the Harry Potter movie. Indeed, I won't remember that being a cold, wet Sunday, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was playing on the telly for the umpteenth time. I won't recall how funny it was this morning when Mais was prancing around, swishing a pencil at all of us, saying, "I Harry Botter!" I won't remember Jack dressing himself as a 'dinosaur' and begging to turn his bedroom into a dinosaur cave, complete with newspaper rocks and 'dark fings'. I won't remember Phoebalina sitting next to me with the Donna Hay Kids Annual open to the "Enchanted Garden" birthday party pages, reverentially turning the pages and telling me every five seconds the sweet treats she would like at her fifth birthday party. I won't remember that this was the day we took our first trip to Masters to begin gathering the compost and mulch to begin our tiny vegetable garden, instigated by an over-excited Jack. Hopefully, in time, I'll be able to tell you about my children harvesting the vegetables they grew themselves. I just won't remember the hours spent picking up dog poo and fixing the mess left by the bankrupt landscapers necessary to make a decent garden. Deliberate memory loss!
I realise that, if I were to remember every single tiny thing about my children's early years, my brain would be unable to function in a normal manner (which, now that I mention it, fails to happen anyway...so what's my excuse??) It is a natural progression of time that daily details, no matter how cute or disgusting, are lost to the recesses of our brains. It would be fair to say that if we did manage to remember every little thing, perhaps parenthood might suffer a decline...especially if those memories of rainy, cold, bored days with exhausted parents and fractious toddlers were permitted more than their fair share of air space.
I suppose there's only one way to look at my memory loss. Thank goodness that the reality of the newborn-days-of-exhaustion has faded. Thank goodness that I cannot remember the dark, dark days of poo and vomit and not being able to leave the house (aka: three kids under three in the middle of winter) Thank goodness that I have three beautiful, amazing, messy, noisy, farty, clever, shouty, huggable children to give me memories in the first place.
And thank Buddha for those video tapes.
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