Even though I am now a mother to three lovely children I am still my mother’s child. Like all good children do, I like to give my mother a hard time. One of the distinct memories I have of growing up is repeatedly and without mercy giving my mother guff over the fact that she seemed to not remember many details of us as we were growing up. She also didn’t seem to have many keepsakes belong to us. I couldn’t understand how those things weren’t important to her. The sentimentality that I had over a note my best friend in 6th class just didn’t seem to be there for her. My aunt would remember the birthday of every child, pup or duckling born within a 12 mile radius.Other details such as the weather conditions of the day and who was the headline on The Evening Herald might be thrown in for good measure. My mother….. not so much.
What was the weather like the day I was born Mammy? Painful Ellen now don’t be annoying me.
Upon discovering I was pregnant this was something I was not going to repeat with my child or potential children. I wouldn’t forget one single second. Every time that child’s hair grow a millimeter I was going to remember it. Now I’m three children deep… guess what? I don’t remember diddly squat!!!!! Initially with The Sun I remembered bits and pieces but as I added more and more children to my pack I sometimes struggle to recall their date of births. The daily grind of bills and meal planning (ok I don’t meal plan but it sounds cool) and homework and washing just seems to squeeze all those little details out of my brain.
Whilst( looking through pinterest) perusing the internet to source organic pasta for my beloved I came across a great idea to log some of your precious memories with your children. The concept was to write your children letters at memorable times in their lives and give them to them as adults. I had a couple of issues with that. My hand writing is ornate and difficult to read so I didn’t want to tar my precious memories with my scrawl. My other issue was with the filing of said letters. I have lived in 14 places. I didn’t want to put all that effort in only to have to say to the children as adults.
Hey your mother did this really cool thing for you all …. but she lost them.
So I looked further and found the modern equivalent. On behalf of each of my children I have set up an email address. At pivotal times in their lives I have sent them mails. It might be as simple as three sentences. Or as long and drawn out as these blog posts! I send them pictures and video clips and it takes me a matter of seconds. I don’t do it often because I don’t want to fill their inboxes with so much content that they are overwhelmed and I have a good few years of parenting ahead of me. When I found this concept I fell in love with it. Anyone who knows me I sadly, and it’s something I’m trying to work on, never have my phone out of my hand. So with a couple of clicks I’ve sent the mail and the memory is sealed there for them to find when they are older.
Back to my poor aul suffering mother. Brace yourselves here comes the soppy bit. 21 years had passed and we had both survived each other and decided to celebrate with a party. It was a great night on the scale of a small wedding. Celtic Tiger times when people didn’t have to watch their penneys and would come to an opening of an envelope. The part of the evening came to cut the cake and the family photo. Standing on the dance floor my sister presented me with a book. In the book were old pictures of us growing up and she had got everyone at the party to sign it and write me a note. It was lovely. I flipped through it quickly and came across a flick of pink that caught my eye. The card from the hospital with your weight sex and time of birth on it. I couldn’t believe it. I burst into tears and I looked at her and said You kept it. She simply replied.
Of course I did!
Blush, Belly and Babies 