Memories, or Lack There Of

On Saturday, Annalise woke up with a fever in the middle of the night. So I gave her some Tylenol and got into bed with her until her fever dropped and she finally fell back asleep. While we were lying there, she asked me to tell her stories of when I was a little kid. Most of the stories I have to tell she's heard again and again. I'm running out of stories and I don't know if that's because I just don't remember or because my life was really pretty boring and there's really not much worth remembering. Still I was able to come up with enough to keep her distracted and amused.

In the meantime, I started to worry because I am starting to forget what my own kids were like as babies. I have very specific memories of them as they got a little older -- ten months or so and up. But before that, I have these vague recollections of a lot of crying (not just me) and walking and walking and walking and nursing and nursing and nursing. I do have some memories, but stories, not so much. Is it just because in the long run they all kind of do the same thing at roughly the same age and in retrospect it's really not all that intgeresting? I don't know. This concept seems so weird for me, too, since we are enjoying Juliette so much right now. Why wouldn't I want to remember this? So I'm going to try to take pictures in my head of her as she dances with that goofy smile, showing her little dimple. I'll try to remember how much she loves Cheerios and how she does some weird sucking thing when she eats something a little sour. (See, already forgotten what the sour thing was. Just remember the face.) I'll remember how much she loves to wrestle with her brother and giggles that beautiful baby giggle. I won't forget how she used to look up at the pictures of Paris and Venice above her changing table and dream of European vacations. I won't forget that for one week she stuck her tongue out so far she looked like a frog. I won't forget how happy to she is to see the people she loves walk throught the door. I promise, Juliette, who is waking up as I write, I won't forget...