My friend Molly mentioned to me in a text today something about keeping a baby book, whereupon I blushed, swallowed hard, and was really, really glad she couldn’t see my expression. Baby book? Do a lot of you guys keep baby books for your children? No, wait. Don’t tell me if you do. You know the guilt a lot of women get when they spend too much time on Pinterest (“Oh no, I don’t keep color-coordinated drawer dividers for my daughter’s hand-stamped polka-dotted monogrammed socks! I have FAILED as a HUMAN!”)? That’s how I feel when people mention baby books. Why do you think I started a blog? It’s all of the memories with none of the guilt.
Our Saoirse turned five this weekend. I look at Cian, propped up beside me now, cooing away each time we make eye contact (which is a lot. He’s cuter than most puppies), and remember very clearly when she was that small, smiling and cooing, breaking out into a four-limbed stationary dance whenever we talked to her. She was the center of our world, and there was something about her that seemed so uniquely special. Many of you know that she was just two months old when my father passed away from pancreatic cancer, and I think that has so much to do with that feeling we had. Here was new life amidst death, something so pure and good and perfect juxtaposed with awful suffering. My father was dying, my daughter was born. It was a strange time, and she, this young person at the beginning of her life, was there for it all.
But now she’s five, and other than being twice as tall as other five-year-olds (not exaggerating. I didn’t realize it until we toured her kindergarten class and saw her with the other children. It was like the beanstalk hanging around with a bunch of Jacks), by all appearances she’s a typical five-year-old. She loves to play. She hates to share. She’s mostly even-tempered, but when those stages of temper tantrums hit, it’s like our house becomes Pearl Harbor for a week. But I don’t want to remember that. I want to remember this:
I love her. I love her in a way that is guttural, and fierce, and from a place so deep inside me that every hurt of hers becomes mine a hundred times over. She is a child who misbehaves and hugs, who screams and sings, who pushes and insists on giving big fat kisses on the lips before bedtime. She is fiercely independent and needs order, but she’s incredibly messy and wants her sister around her at all times. She is so human, and so real, and so full of possibility and potential and excitement for what’s going to happen tomorrow that I sometimes feel jaded and crotchety in comparison. Is she the charmed creature that rose out of the loss that so marked her early months? Well, yes, but not because of that loss, or despite of it. She’s a child. She’s her own child, and that is reason enough to be cherished.
Cian has a bit of a speech impediment–if you’ve just met…
I’ve realized recently that I don’t write about my mom very…
Kris Mehigan (@KKMHOO) | 18th Feb 13
Two thoughts…
Regarding- baby book. Do NOT kick yourself. You’re a mom of three. THREE. And they are super lucky to have you as their mom. If you’re feeling at all guilty, you can do what I did… a baby box for each child. I’ve saved baby clothes, the little stuffed animals they slept with, special pictures, artwork they made in preschool, and I’m still adding. One day I plan to make a video of me going through each box and telling my memories of them as babies the box contents (when I get to it).
Regarding- birthday balloons. LOVE that idea! May have to do that for my little guy’s birthday.
From your blog posts and your tweets, it sounds like Saoirse is her mama’s Mini-Me.