The mom fog

Okay, here's a question for all you parents out there - do you remember your child(ren)'s infancy in detail? Can you remember specific days, detailed events, and concrete memories of individual things that happened? Or are you like me, where you look at pictures of your little ones and marvel at how small they were and find that you almost can't remember that time? I look at pictures of Sabrina and Nathan from even just a few months ago and can't get over how much they've changed...but I also can't remember life at that time in great detail.

Why is that? Does life provide a general fog over a time in your life when you are generally exhausted on a regular basis? Is it a psychological thing so that you won't remember just how hard each and every day of raising small children can be, thereby ensuring that the continuation of the species goes on? I don't know. But it frustrates me. I want to remember more, I want to look at pictures and have more than just a overall recollection of what was happening at the time of the photo. I want to remember exactly what it was like to have that baby at that exact point in time.

I want to remember other things as well, funny things that Sabrina says that I think I'll always remember but am realizing that over time, I may forget. Like the fact that she calls suitcases "zootcases," air conditioning is "hair conditioning," ping pong is "ding dong," my nipples (hey, I'm a nursing mom, what can I say) are "nibbles," and so on and so on.

Sigh. I always vow to slow down, cherish each moment, enjoy this oh-so-brief time in their lives. Maybe that will help the memories concrete themselves in my mind. But then I get caught up in the sometimes mind-numbing boredom of raising two small kids and the oh-so-very-down-to-earth things that go along with it, like reading the same dang book over and over and over and changing diapers and coaxing them both to eat carrots. It's hard sometimes to remember that yes, those times are to be cherished as well, instead of rushed through. It's hard to slow down at all sometimes. But I know I need to. For this stage, this too, will pass, and in only a couple of months, I'll be squinting at the pictures I took this week and thinking "Look how cute they are! How small! Boy, what was that like? I can't remember!!"