The Impossible Task of Remembering the Firsts, the Lasts and all the In-betweens
Last weekend, I purchased pacifiers for the very last time.
I knew beforehand that it would be the last time because I was buying them for my two year old who should be dropping the habit soon. But our stash was running low for the time being and sleep was suffering.
Sleep should NEVER suffer if at all possible.
So I walked into Target all alone and headed over to the baby section...where I rarely find myself anymore, and found that I was unexpectedly and sentimentally transported back to a previous season of life not too long ago while searching through the pacifier brands. I stopped and stared at the “Medela yellow” breast pump supplies, the c-shaped feeding pillows, the new Aden + Anais muslin designs and all the other necessities for newborn survival. There were colorful stroller toys, Aveeno gift sets, teethers and bottles. It felt like a lifetime ago since I’d had a need for any of the items I saw on those shelves.
I remember researching for hours on end which brands of baby gear I should purchase when we were pregnant with our first. For some reason, I really remember all the time and energy I put into researching car seats. Graco or Chicco. I read the reviews. I looked at the current color options. I considered fabrics and stroller attachments.
It was all so vitally important in the moment. Such a monumental change.
And it was.
But then one day, my very last baby rode in that car seat for the very last time before needing to move up to the bigger seat and I didn’t even notice it. It wasn’t a milestone. It wasn’t even really remembered until it was already over.
I mourn to think how we can't always appropriately savor our lasts in the same way that we have the foresight to enjoy our firsts. And I can see how we have certain things that we “do” to fight against this discrepancy that we all know is there.
I’m sentimental to a fault...to a point that I can really stress myself out about things that don’t matter (shocking, I know.) I can remember just a few years ago as a new mom when I was obsessed with documenting the first time my kids did ANYTHING. Their first words, their first haircuts, their steps. What a celebration! I wrote down dates of new teeth, new words, new foods. All because some wise person told me that if I wanted to remember it, I should write it down. Because looking back, you don’t remember the details. And I can attest to that as truth. You really don’t remember the details in the way that you’d like to. I’m not sure if it’s a result of aging or the lack of sleep over the past seven years of my life or if our brains just aren’t meant to function that way, but my memory of individual moments has begun to fail me in a way that I’m aware of. I know there are things that I wish I remembered more clearly, but I don’t.
For example, my kids have played a bit of musical chairs in the bedrooms of our home. I can remember each different layout of each individual room, where the crib was placed, the rocking chair, the color scheme and even some of the wall decor. I know that I spent most nights rocking each of those babies to sleep in that same chair, yet I don’t remember the individual nights. I can still feel their little bodies all curled up on top of my chest and into my shoulder, each one of them preferring a specific and individual position of comfort. But the individual nights are a blur. I can even remember telling myself at different times “please remember this sweet moment”. Yet, it didn’t stick.
So I wrote things down. I filled out baby books. I took thousands of pictures with a DSLR camera. And all the while, I’m not sure if it really made much of a difference to remember all the firsts. If you need the dates to check developmental milestones, that’s one thing.
But it turns out that writing them down to help me remember them wasn’t necessarily all that effective. At the same time, I never wrote down any of the “lasts”.
The last night in a swaddle...The last night nursing to sleep...The last night in a crib before moving into a big bed. Rarely do we have the foresight beforehand to know when a moment will be the last time. These moments of closing a chapter and opening a new one mostly take place before we even know it. Sometimes we know they’re coming for us, but most times, we don’t.
Something inside my mama heart breaks a little bit because of this reality.
We don’t know when will be the last time they’ll sleep in their crib before they crawl out, or the last time they’ll mispronounce that word that we promised we’d never teach them the correct way to say it. We don’t know when will be the last time they’ll crawl into bed with us in the middle of the night, or let us walk them into their classroom at school. And even in those rare cases when we do know that this moment that we’re in right now is the very last one of its kind, we can try as we may to hang on, but time won’t stand still for us.
And that right there is one of the truths of motherhood that we’ve all unknowingly signed up to live with day in and day out until we take our lasts breath on earth.
The inevitable change that we’re always hoping will come in great anticipation and at the same time, leaning against, so that it won’t come too quickly before we’re ready for it.
To make it more exciting, no two kids are alike, so you can’t even take new expectations into your second or third or fourth round.
But I don’t think we should allow this to paralyze us or become over-sentimental in every single moment of every day. What it does for me is it calls me to freedom when it comes to savoring the firsts and the lasts. The pressure shouldn’t be there to write them down, to experience them and remember them forever, because the individual moments aren’t necessarily what it’s all about. I know lots of you missed some of the important “firsts” and “lasts” in your babies lives. You were asleep. You were at work. You were helping one of your other children. And missing a first or a last doesn’t mean that the savoring can’t happen. It points to the proof that even though you missed or can’t remember an individual moment, a first or a last, what’s important is that you remember the love.
The feeling of their “little bodies all curled up on top of your chest and into your shoulder, each one of them preferring a specific and individual position of comfort.”
So the pressure is off mama. Just love them well and savor what you can.