OmegaMom

This evening the dotter was busy building a house/restaurant/castle in the living room.  She insisted I lie down on the futon and be served by “Melissa”.  Melissa (the dotter) is possibly the owner of the establishment; I was told she was “kind of a waitress, but also kind of a doctor.”  After which, the dotter gave a very French style of shrug.  I have no idea where this shrug has come from, but she’s using it fairly often these days, and it lends a certain je ne sais quoi to our interactions.

OmegaDad came over to peer at us in curiosity, and the dotter informed me that he was “The Officer of the Bakery”.  Then she told OmegaDad that I was “the staying customer”.  I had to stay there forever, she told me, and when I objected, she said, “Oh, you can take my car!”

But this morning, in the car, was even better.  There was some grand flight of imagination that made me laugh, that I thought I should share with people.  The problem is:  I don’t remember it.  Oh, I remember noting it in my head, and saying to myself, “I need to remember this one!”  But less than 12 hours later, it’s a blank.

Some people are veritable recording devices when it comes to their kids’ utterances.  I am in awe.  I tend to have episodes like the above all the time, and it frustrates me.  The dotter is a font of cuteness, strange collections of pseudo-stream-of-consciousness all stitched together by her imagination.  I would like to share it with people.

I read blogs where the parental units recite, word-for-word, utterly cute things their kids said that day, and I seethe with envy.

My memory is a patchwork, a thing of lace and tatters.  Half of the reason for this blog is so that I can lay out this piece of the lacery, and that piece–kind of like those photographs of what archeologists do with old papyrus documents when they’re piecing them together.

I find myself grasping at the memories, and putting them down on paper (or computer) whenever I can, because they flit out of my head so quickly.  I would like to say that this is a recent development, an outgrowth of my dalliance with menopause, but, alas, it is not so; the faulty memory is a constant in my life.

My Unka Bill has a phenomenal memory; at the age of 70-something, he can chit-chat with my mother and recite specific things that people did or said when they were two and four.  My husband has an interesting take on memory abilities:  he can remember complete lyrics to obscure ’60s rock-and-roll songs and entire scenes from movies (though he can’t remember, for instance, that the dotter was to visit Miss Louise, our OT, yesterday).

We went to China only four years ago to meet the dotter and bring her home.  An amazingly emotional journey.  Something that you would think would live on in one’s memory for years, indelible, movie-like in its clarity.  My memories?  A few snapshots, a vignette or two.  I cannot remember holding OmegaDotter for the first time–so I rely on the photos from the trip, and I feel dreadfully guilty about this.

Anyway, I thought the “Officer of the Bakery” was cute enough to put down on paper, so when the dotter is 25, I can open up this blog entry and remember it.

Technorati: Memory