I wish I could remember all of the interactions I had with my mother as a young child but I can’t. As I sit here and write this I’m racking my brain trying to remember moments of warm embrace and whispers of I love you’s from my mom, but I don’t remember having those moments as a child. I don’t remember whether or not my mom use to sit on the floor with me and play with my baby dolls, or cook imaginary meals using my kitchen set. I can’t remember whether or not she use to spin me around in the living room or play hide-n-seek with me around the house. I don’t even remember if I saw her do those things with my younger sister.
However, what I do remember is late night binge watching The Nanny, opening my lunch box on field day’s and field trips to find the most deluxe sandwiches that rivaled all my peers LOL, trips to the hair salon, trips to the nail shop, and racing around trying to find a prom dress. Most of my memories with my mom are from my teenage and adulthood years; now I’m not sure if that’s normal but I am okay with that. My mom did her best to make it to every single one of my prenatal appointments and she’s always there rooting for me and cheering me on no matter how badly I may upset her at times.
As I write this, I realize that I have memories of how my mom is with my son. Taking the time with him after a long day of work to cuddle him, tickle him, and feed him stuff I said he couldn’t have. I have memories of all the “I love you’s” she has said to him and the FaceTime calls just to look at him because we’ve moved so many miles away.
As children, I don’t think we ever really think about how special each interaction we have with our parents or caregivers are. As parents I don’t think we understand how important it is to make memories that will last a lifetime for our children. I love Josiah, and I hope that as he ages he’s able to retain all the tickles and giggles, I hope he can retain our tiffs of hide-n-go-seek and how he likes to grab my hand to take me to his room and sit on his mat so we can play with his assortment of toys.
Even if Josiah doesn’t remember all of the memories we are building, I hope that he knows and feels the love I have for him. Just as I feel the love my mom has for me.
