Time heals all ... memories???

I have talked to a few people about this and I have read an article on brain function, biology and memory and it seems pretty true that “Time heals all wounds.” I mean I think that it most applies to relationships, you could be in a serious relationship and have some crappy things done to you but years later your mind tends to soften those wounds and you only remember the good stuff. But I think it applies to childbirth and raising children as well.


Now that A Bird is almost six, life is easy. She can pretty much take care of herself, just the other day she got up, got herself dressed, turned on the TV and was getting herself some breakfast when L Bird walked out to see what she was doing. It was a proud moment to see how independent she has become and how her independence has eased our life considerably. That independence was what we had grown accustomed to before we had Nat. So the whole time we were trying to have Nat our minds had only remembered all the sweet times when A Bird was a baby. We remembered all the smiles, coos and her first laughs. We remembered watching her personality develop and her first steps, we remembered worrying about her not speaking then worrying she would never stop talking. Yep, that’s all we remembered and envisioned while L Bird was pregnant with Nat. Sure, we vaguely remembered sleepless nights and crying but time had softened those blows in our memories so they “really weren’t that bad”. From talking to L Bird labor was hard, but she made it through and “it wasn’t so bad”, it was something to be proud of to make it through naturally. Yep, that is what we remembered.

Now Nat is officially here and making her mark on our lives and the realities of raising children have set in and are vividly marked in our minds. Don’t get me wrong, I am so so so thankful to God that he blessed us with Nat and I wouldn’t change a thing. I am truly blessed, but it is tough to go through the screaming, crying, sleepless nights again. All of the things we forgot about during A Bird growing up are right at the forefront of our every waking thought with Nat. All of the bouts of explosive diarrhea, the fun of being peed on as you change a diaper, the inconsolable crying that only L Bird can comfort when I am alone with both girls, and the constant worrying are present. You just get the baby down to sleep, then the random thought of what if she pulled a receiving blanket over her face? Or what if the cat jumped into the Moses basket and is smothering her? creep into your mind, so you sneak into the bedroom as quietly as possible, army crawling if you have to, when you step on a toy or a cat meows and you freeze like you are caught in the spotlight of a prison break movie. You stand stock still and hold your breathe until you’re positive she is still asleep then you sneak to take a peek at her and she is absolutely fine, flat out asleep with her hands above her head like a drunk hobo. All I am saying is you forget about all of these things when you are pregnant and waiting for the baby.

I read an article that said we are biologically programmed this way, to forget the bad and only remember the good. The article said we are programmed this way to ensure the survival of the human race. The point it was trying to make was if we remembered all of the not so good experiences as vividly as we remember the good and great memories not many of us would have brothers and sisters because our parents would have stopped at one child. It makes sense to me, if women could remember with explicit detail the pain of childbirth I’m not so sure they would want to experience it again. I know they remember it and remember it well, but “time heals all wounds” and the memory is softened by the fact that you get a cute ball of joy at the end.

I know that in time all this will pass and I’ll be left with a new set of worries like boyfriends and driving and even those memories will be softened as I grow old, but for now I’ll suffer through the bad because the good stuff far outweighs the bad. We’ll make it through with a lot of help from our friend, COFFEE. On that note, I’m off to pour myself a nice hot cup of black delicious caffeine.

The Best Laid Plans…

Well, you know the quote by Robert Burns, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”. That’s exactly what happened today, L Bird and I had plans and then life happened. Today is L Bird’s last week of maternity leave, she goes back to work on Monday. I had a few things I had to do today, but after those things I had planned on spending the day with L Bird. A Bird was going to school and Nat was going to go to daycare as a trial run, so we pretty much had the day to spend together.

It was going to be a day date, because with a 5 year old and a newborn its tough to try and get a sitter without feeling guilty about leaving both kids  and without feeling guilty for the sitter having to deal with two needy kids. So we figured the only way we can spend some quality time with each other is to take a weekday off from work while both kids are gone. That was the plan for today, we were going to go to the ReStore to scout out a dresser for Nat, then to the jewelry store to have L Bird’s rings repaired, then have some lunch and maybe a little afternoon delight for dessert before we picked up the kids. Yep, sounds like a great date right. That’s what I thought too, but then life hits.

L Bird had put A Bird on the bus and dropped Nat off at daycare, and had just gotten back home. I had already showered, was drinking coffee and ready to go do my thing then start our day date. L Bird was just getting out of the shower and the phone rings and it’s the school nurse. Blammo, plans derailed! A Bird threw up on the bus and needed to be picked up from school.

We picked A Bird up and got the details, from the sounds of things she threw up as the bus pulled into its spot at school and it wasn’t too bad. She didn’t throw up on herself or any other kids so it is as good as it can get for throwing up on the bus.

So now we are home with A Bird and her 103.1 F fever. Luckily, our daycare still has Nat so we can concentrate on getting A Bird settled into her bed and feeling a little better before we throw a screaming baby into the mix too.

So here’s to the joys of parenting…

Late Resolution, New Skills & A Game of Tag

So I knew that I wanted to write a post about new year’s resolutions, but with a new baby somehow time just seems to disappear. Lucky for me I am stealing this few minutes as my three “birds” are occupied. One is asleep, one is watching spongebob and one is cleaning.

I normally don’t make new year’s resolutions just because I typically lack the will power to keep them going. But this I thought I would make a small resolution and take small steps to achieve my goals. My resolution is to learn 10 new skills this year. I figure that is achievable. I want to learn 10 new things and be proficient at them. I am on a self sufficient/survivalist kick so I figured most of my skills would focus on those type of skills. So I am currently learning to tie knots, I know it sounds like I am trying to be a boy scout, but I figured learning 5 basic knots would come in handy for everything from camping to tying down the kayaks. I would say that I am proficient at 3 of the 5 I want to learn now so I still have some work to do. After knots, I think I am going to work on fire starting using a variety of methods, then who knows what else maybe some axemanship for felling trees and splitting my firewood more efficiently. I know, I know its pretty boring stuff, but who knows it may come in handy sometime, right?

The other thing that I wanted to blog about was a game of tag I read about in the news. Apparently this group  of friends have been playing a game of tag for the past 23 years. They started off playing in grade school and with a few tweaks have continued playing throughout life. Apparently one of them is a lawyer or something and they drew up a formal tag contract where they would only play one month of the year, in their case February, and they couldn’t tag the person that just tagged them. So throughout the month of February they have flown across the country, staked each other out and enlisted the help of whoever it took to “tag” someone. It was a really interesting story, in you are interested in the particulars you can find them here. But anyway, after reading that article I thought it was a really fun and interesting way to keep in touch. I sat down and thought about if I could pull that off with a few of my friends. I think it would be possible but it would get way out of hand. I was envisioning suggesting this to the Goof Troop and the Trout Derby Brain Trust. I could see instead of “tagging” someone it would most likely be the old fashioned and crude “tap in the grapes” that usually gets played when they are around. But they are all seriously deranged I could see them hiding under my bed until 2 AM then jumping out and rochambeau (see South Park entry) me. So I am little on the fence about bringing it up, but we will see because it would be epic if we started this game.

So that’s about it. How are you doing with your resolutions? Do you have any interesting ways to keep in touch with your friends?