Mark and I were talking yesterday about why you don't have memories of being a baby. I think one of my earliest memories is of when we lived in our first house on Greenlawn (I really don't even know if that's the name of the street or I'm just making it up.) Anyway, I was outside playing when I spied a black and white kitty. I think it was a neighborhood cat that we called Skinny (because, um, he was skinny). I picked up the cat and the devilish thing took its front claws and used my face as a scratching post. I had 3 scratches on both cheeks that were dripping blood, so I ran into my house screaming. I can't remember exactly how old I was but I think I was 4 or 5. It amazes me that I lived in that house until I was 6, but I have very few memories of it (other than being impaled by a psycho cat.)
So, I started thinking, when will Jacob have his first lifelong memory? And isn't it sad that he's not remembering any of these fun times that we're having now? What about the Musical Magic class we took today? Why doesn't he get to remember the songs we sang and the elephant masks we wore? (He certainly won't remember me fearing for my life that the instructor was going to ask the mommies to make the noises of their respective animals on their masks. Have you heard my elephant noise? Mark says it sounds like a dying seal.) I get to remember all of these things about our time together. Why doesn't he?
So Mark, of course, got all scientific on me and started talking about the sizes of babies brains and how they grow so much in the first few years of life, and while their brain is developing they don't have the capacity to register "memories." He started talking about evolution and somewhere along the line he lost me (*yawn*).
Then I realized something. In the last few days, Jacob has fallen down at least 50 times. He's bonked his head in maybe half of those instances. He's cried because he's hungry, he's cried because he's tired, he's cried because he wants my attention, he's cried...well...just because he feels like it. He has pooped himself and peed himself and thrown up on himself. He screams uncontrollably because he can't crawl to get where he wants to go. And that's just in the last few days.
In the last 9 months, he got stuck in my birth canal and had to be vacuumed out, he has been pricked with every needle imaginable at every doctors visit, he has had to learn how to hold his head up, roll over, sit up, feed himself, and pull himself up. All the while, he has had no means of communicating other than crying and boy did he abuse that privilege when he was a newborn.
All I'm saying is, it's not easy being a baby. No wonder we don't remember these days. Can you imagine?! We'd be all worn out by the time we were 2. I probably would have thrown in the towel at 6 months. God knew what he was doin', kids.
So now I just continue to wonder when Jacob will have that first ever lifelong memory. Will it be something mundane, like the color of his room in our house, or a favorite toy he played with? Or will it be something more eventful like his first base hit in t-ball? Or when he takes off on his bike for the first time without training wheels? I assume it will likely be an event of some significance. I just hope it's not a traumatic one, like witnessing mommy and daddy trying to make baby #2.
With our luck, that would be Jacob's first ever lifelong memory.
