Oops! I've Forgotten ... A LOT!

I had to fill in a form at Adrian's speech pathology appointment and amongst plenty of other details, it asked for the ages that he rolled over, started babbling, spoke his first word, spoke his first sentence, stood up and walked. Uhmmmmm.....Hmmmmmm...I clearly remember him trying to walk with a stool at around 7 months and actually taking his first steps at 10 months. As for rolling over, there is a post somewhere on this blog about that but I'll need to look for it. And first words/sentences? I don't know! He's been talking for a long time and I often think that he talks too much.

What kind of mother am I? Should I have all this information at the forefront of my brain? And if not, shouldn't I have written them down somewhere? Somebody gave me one of those baby journals when he was born but there are only about six entries and the last one was when he was around 4 months old. If only I had stuck with that.

I think I made more of an effort with Aaron but that doesn't mean I can remember each of those ages. I have it written down somewhere, maybe spread out over several somewheres. I wrote him a letter for each month of his young life for about a year and a half but guess what? Hard disk crashed and I had deleted the backup off my external hard disk to make room for more photos. This blog is about the most reliable place for me to go and look up the past.

I feel bad about this. I know I'll have wonderful memories about their early years but these are general memories with the occasional specific incident here and there. Somehow, it feels as if this is not going to be enough when I'm old and sitting alone in a nursing home somewhere. I suppose I'll just have the thousands of photos and video clips of them played on slideshow in my room.

A commitment needs to be made but I dare not make it now. Nearly two years ago, I started working on photo albums for each year of Aaron's life but I have nothing to show for it. These precious little beings are my life but by that very fact, they take up all my time and I'm not sure I'll ever get around to preserving some sort of account of their childhood for me to savour once they are grown.

Here's an example of the simple things I'd like to remember in years to come. This was taken yesterday when they were out in the garden looking for bugs. Adrian looks like he's in his PJs but thats actually just a big shirt made from very light material to help protect him from the sun. The hat he's wearing was one bought at Pangkor Island for Aaron. Its a girl's one and originally came with two fake plaits down the sides. Aaron really is in his PJs and he's wearing the Superman cap that a close friend of mine gave him a couple of years ago.

Oh, and maybe Id like to remember that we always had to eat sweet potato leaves because they grow like crazy in our garden.