This month I am frequently being swallowed whole in moments of déjà vu. On hands and knees, cleaning up bits of food from underneath the highchair, am I really here, already? And popping him down on the carpet in a video store, to sit with my purse and keys while I choose a DVD – I can recall the first baby and I here exactly, even if we lived somewhere else entirely. Maybe, because he is mostly an easier baby, I am surprised to find us here already. The journey to six months seemed to take all I had the first time.
All the while something else is happening too. My memories of him as a baby are paving over my memories of her. It seems my brain has limited space and it is forced to record over the top of earlier memories. I try to recall her as a baby, recall her as it was in the moment, and I can only find the memory of memories.
I would be sadder were I not to know better.
When my younger daughters were tiny, I got the most powerful flashbacks to the time when my elder daughter was a similar age. It was quite extraordinary.
Yes, the first six months went much, much faster the second time around.
The memories paving over memories has got me. My little one is 17 months old now and it’s like images of my oldest (7 yrs) and fading into the dust.
Beautifully put, you’re so right. The first six months with the first baby seems like a marathon, at the end of which you feel you deserve a medal and need a holiday to recover. With the second baby it just flies by, too quickly. And yes, I find it difficult to remember some of my daughter’s baby days, even though she is only 3. Maybe once I’m getting a solid 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep again, some memories will resurface.