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Archive for 19. April 2009

Memory Challenge…

19. April 2009 by PB Rippey.

Oh the questions spewing from my mouth when I was pregnant! I interrogated a couple of seasoned mamas, friends of mine, only to be told by them repeatedly (dazed confusion clouding their eyes), “I’m sorry—I just don’t remember.” What!!! How could they not remember vitals like how many times their babies woke up during the night in the first three months, battles with diaper rash and—so much more. Actually, I can’t remember what the heck I asked them—I had to dredge the banks for what I’ve just written here.

Because I, too, have memory blocks since giving birth, since those first three long, intense, post-C-section months. Though S took digi-cam footage and 3,000 pictures, still I can’t remember actually changing diapers that small, or dressing T in those mini-mitts we couldn’t live without. If I think too much about what I can’t remember, I turn into Tim Robbins in “Jacob’s Ladder,” when his face goes cuckoo every time he passes a mirror.

I have the screensaver on my computer that plays photographs from My Photos. Do you have that? Often, as I’m feeding T, my laptop perched next to me on my perch on the king size bed forever dominating our living rooom, beside which I’ve positioned T’s high chair—as I encourage T to try steamed baby carrots, often my eye is caught by photos wafting across my laptop’s screen, ones taken on or around 11/12/07-ish and I gasp. Who is that woman cradling that urchin? My son was never that small! My ass was never that big, surely! Where did that onesie come from? Oh yeah, his hair was black when he was born—I forgot!!! And there goes my face into “Jacob’s Ladder” mode, sproinging every which way with a sped up “yuk yuk” sound as accompaniment.

After 9 months and 1 week of pregnancy, I became fathoms-lady, swimming slowly through incomprehensible depth: birth, taking T home, calling the doctor 12 times in 3 days, showing up at the doctor’s several times a week, driving, driving (once I was mobile after the C section) to calm the strange and exotic little creature consuming my personal hours—despite all the activity, for 90 days life elongated and slowed Einstein-ish-theorem style. I delve through My Photos and the 5 photo albums I’ve filled in 17 months and I can’t believe the changes. These days, life with T in hyper-drive, we don’t even use Dreft and think nothing of putting him to bed without socks on his feet. “The baby might freeze!” “The baby could receive spinal cord damage if we don’t put extra padding in the jogging stroller!” “Our baby will never eat a french fry!” Those days are all over. Done. Gone. We are experienced parents, now, with memory loss. And I know why. There are studies and facts and findings regarding this memory loss issue that I’m way too tired to research and read (also, I forget to), but I know the bottom-line answer. It is:

f e a r

When you don’t know why he’s scream-crying even after you’ve fed and changed him, don’t know what those tiny red bumps are on his chest, his cold prevents him from breastfeeding easily and you’re terrified he’s going to suffocate AND starve, SIDS, first fever, projectile vomits…It’s hard to be a baby. Much harder than being parents. Still, the memory loss thing must be protection for mommies, a salved-up band-aid on true pain, because if we did recall absolutely clearly every single detail from birth through those first scary few months, when every sneeze means certain death, why the HELL would we ever have more than one child.

Memory loss is Mother Nature’s way of insuring the babies keep coming—bless their obviously precious cloud-pink, diaper rash prone bottoms.

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