Selective Memory

The other night, my husband watched as I slumped onto the couch and groaned a single word, "Babies. . ."

It had been a tough evening, with Finn melting into tears on the floor for every little thing imaginable. Mama can't hold me right this minute?  I can't play in the garbage or push all the buttons on the computer? Puddle of crying baby. It all ended with Finn not going to sleep until he had cried for a good hour and a half in his crib.  I was one tired pregnant lady.

So, at ten 'o clock, when my husband saw my crumpled form and said, "Just think about next year, when we will have two kids," I replied, "I won't make it that far, they'll have to put on my grave, 'She died of babies.'"

I'm a little melodramatic sometimes.

But, as I was laying in bed that night, what I really remembered about my day was the funny squinty-eyed, big toothed smile Finn gives me sometimes for no reason at all.  And the way he charmed every old lady at the diner when we went out to lunch.  And how silly he is for loving to throw everything down the stairs.  That's when it hit me: moms have a sort of God-given selective memory.  When our babies are asleep or gone, we remember what we love about them, what makes them adorable and unique and all ours.  It allows us to go on for another day and not, you know,eat them for breakfast, like we might occasionally threaten.

When I thought about it a little more, I realized that this sort of selective memory is pretty essential for every kind of love.  Look at your friendships. Don't you (mostly) forget about the time your friend ditched you at a party or forgot your birthday and try to remember that time they brought you coffee for no reason or listened to you cry?  Don't family relationships work with the same dynamic, functioning better when we put aside the last snarky exchange and bring up an inside joke?  Sometimes we have to let go of the last family emotional blow up and hold on to the memory of the last family party (supposing, of course, that they aren't the same thing.)  Ultimately, the little things in life matter, but we can choose to forget the little bad things and to treasure up the little good things. 

This sort of selective memory sometimes comes naturally, like when the offender is a super cute baby, and other times takes lots of work.  But isn't that what love calls us to do, seven times or seventy times seven times?

Today is: The Feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus
Finn is: 14 months and three weeks old
Mama is Reading: All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky by Joe R. Lansdale
Littlest One is: 21 weeks along

p.s. Sorry there are still no new pictures. I will find batteries for the blasted camera soon, I promise.