by Cathy & Patti
Our loyal readers may have noticed a trend recently in regard to our posting on this blog: it just ain't happening with as much frequency.
Aside from nurturing this blog as a way to vent and share our experiences as mothers, daughters, (working) women, wives and the million other hats we wear, we do it for posterity. How amazing is it that as our daughters get older, they can at first scoff, bristle at and be embarrassed by our posts, then later not only be able to forever cherish and relate to, but through our stories, also get to know their mothers as human - as women, pure and simple. This is something invaluable that we aim to pass down to them.
Lately, it seems, the harried pace of life doesn't allow us to revel in its memories long enough for them to be documented. Ideas for posts still come as life experiences hand them to us. Notes are taken, either physically or mentally, the latter of which can be smothered by more important to-do lists and lost forever within the confines of our overworked, overstressed minds.
Cathy
Evidence of how I'm lagging in this department became painfully evident to me recently. As we were all indulging in a rare evening of relaxation in front of the television recently - homework, baths, dishes and cleaning all done - my youngest daughter, Ari, who really can't sit still long enough to watch anything unless it's a Disney movie she hasn't seen before, enters the living room with her photo album in hand. I felt a surge of panic rise up inside of me.
"Honey, what are you doing with your album?" I asked carefully.
"Where are my baby pictures?" she answers my question with a question.
Uh oh. Did she just ignore me? Is she mad?
Well, she should be. She is the second child, which means, not everything was done with her the way it was meticulously done with my firstborn. This is universal. We all freak with our first child - make sure to wash the pacifier every single time it falls on the kitchen floor before we give it back to them; make sure to pack everything but the kitchen sink when go out for a stroll, just in case!; make sure to handle them extra gently because they may break; make sure to bathe them every night, etc.
Part of this for me was keeping photo albums journaling Bella's (my older daughter) growth, milestones, etc. In fact, I think I have three neatly arranged, chronologically ordered, beautiful photo albums for Bella. But for Ari? The one she was holding in her hands was it. I got as far as stamping her cute 'lil hand and foot on the cover and filling up the first few pages. That's it.
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"Um...why do you ask?" I tested her.
"Because I want to put them in my album. Bella has all of hers in her books and I want mine in my book."
Knife...meet heart. I don't think I possibly could have felt more awful as a mother. (Well, there are other scenarios but this one loomed large at the moment.)
"Here," I offered, getting my ass up off the couch and heading towards our hallway closet, the keeper of the memories. "I'll get them for you and help you."
"No, that's okay. I can do it myself."
I felt that knife twisting.
"But you have to put them in order, like from when you are a baby and up. I can help you do that."
My stubborn Leo zodiac of a child insisted. "No, I'll just do it, okay?"
So I threw my guilty mom hands up and let her have at it.
In my defense, the technological revolution between when my two children were born (they have a five-year age difference) was extreme. I used a regular Cyber-shot camera while Bella was growing up, but with Ari, I've been using my smartphone for the most part. And who develops those? I sure haven't. But it's now something I have put at the top of my priority list, because who wants their child getting gypped of their memories simply because we don't find the time to document them? We need to find time to document those memories.
by Patti
My butt has been burning for months. This burning sends electrical shooting pains down my legs and into my feet. Various Dr. Google searches have allowed me to diagnose myself with a really, really bad case of Piriformis syndrome or maybe even a slipped disc. Either way, I know I need to have a non-Dr. Google officially diagnose me, but the thing is: I haven't had time to make an appointment. And even if I did - I don't have the time to actually honor an appointment. Between a full-time job, traveling for work, and ballet lessons coming out of my burning ass, I am time-starved.
Time starvation means certain things have to give. This blog has been one of them. It's not as if though there are millions of people waiting in line with bated breath for my next post - this I know - it's just that the day-after-day of blank space where a by Patti should be serves to remind me that, despite the time starvation, I need to find a way to carve out a few minutes a day to observe, absorb, and reflect.
Not too long ago, S had to do a school project that required family pictures. Although I am pretty good at taking pictures with my phone, and keeping my Instagram account fat with photos, what I am not good at is taking family pictures. The three of us are rarely in one place at one time in a photo-ready mode, and, well, pictures of my dog's flat-faced, shadowy profile or of my backyard heaped with snow then treated with Instagram's "Amaro" effect don't exactly make for school-ready photos. I scoured my photo drawer for pictures from the "olden" days - the days when, like Cathy, I used a real camera and actually had photos developed - but none of them seemed apropos. And even the few pictures I had saved on my computer that could be deemed as worthy of this school project were held hostage on my hard drive by the fact my printer had run out of ink and I hadn't time to buy ink. My butt is on fire and you expect me to have time for INK? So, yeah....no. No pictures. "I ain't got time for no memories!" I lamented to Cathy over the phone. And it's true. And sadly so.
This weekend we head out on our annual Michigan trip with four moms, seven daughters, and two dogs. The snow will probably have melted, making sledding impossible; the tubing park will have closed; the ice skating rink a degree too warm. With seven screaming tweens and two pouncing dogs, it will be chaotic, no doubt. But I will be unplugged from "harried", and plugged into the present, and damn it: I'm gonna make some memories.
