Amy Storch and her son Ezra had a messy afternoon yesterday.
As Amy describes it on her blog, amalah.com, the little boy came down with a stomach bug after eating a whole lot of raspberries, and the results were very magenta -- all over Amy, Ezra and the house.
She adds her voice to some already messy times here on HuffPost Parents. Devon Corneal recently listed some of her "grossest moments" in parenting, and I'm betting Amy would find them all very familiar. Then lots of readers began to weigh-in over at the rapidly growingHuffPost Parents page on Facebook. (Warning: reading the comments will make you laugh. Just don't read while you are eating.)
My own most nauseating memory as a parent was when I was delighting my baby boy, lifting him hiiiiigggghhhh above my head and swinging him down faaaasssst -- before I knew that this was the kid who gets motion sickness. He was on the apex, directly above my head, and I had my face turned up toward him, with my mouth wide open in a wheeeeeeeeeee. His mouth suddenly opened pretty wide too. You can guess the rest.
He, naturally has no memory of this. And it's that thought -- about how early memories (and sacrifices) are ours, not theirs -- that most struck me about Amy's post today.
She writes:
As a former child yourself, you probably have at least one memory of a traumatic throwing-up event in your bed or on the floor or all over the backseat of the car. You probably DON'T, however, have any memory of cleaning up the carnage after the fact, because you didn't f#@?king have to. No, you got cleaned up and put to bed and left to wallow in your own snuffly misery with a popsicle while your parents dealt with the rest of it, desperately praying to the Clorox gods that they would escape coming down with it themselves.
Amy calls this realization that "no one was ever going remember that I once did this for them" a moment of "Hideous Soul-Breaking Clarity". But even as she writes it, you know she doesn't mean it. Because it's the things you do for them that they will never remember, and therefore can not ever thank you for, that are some of the richest pieces of parenting.
What were some of yours?
My mother died the year between the birth of both children and those years were a rough combination of joy and grief. A generational life cycle playing itself out in the matter of less than twenty four months. The death of a mother is a dark period of time for most not matter how it is white washed with at least she no longer is suffering and so forth. Both children were instrumental in helping me through the grieving process after my mothers death.
I have been fortunate to have children who have and do thank me for what I have contributed in such things as teaching them to swim, swing, ride bikes, and so on and so forth. They show their appreciation and respect in various ways by asking me if I need help doing something. The youngest says thanks by giving me "pat pats" which it seems she learned from my years holding her over the years after she ate and prior to going to bed. They say thank you ever time they simply say hello and good night daddy.
She and her sister learned to swim this summer. One day she spent nearly the whole day in the pool. So I figured she'd be tired and go to bed and sleep well. They were all in bed, and here she comes about 9 pm with another bathing suit in hand. My husband and I just laughed. My mom came downstairs and stayed with the other kids and we went for an evening swim.
I don't know if she will remember these things. But I will. And my Mom, well her life's work is complete now. "You have 4 girls, and you finally have one just like you".
Two that I remember (both having to do with coffee oddly enough) are
1. on a trip to chicago one morning we woke our oldest daughter (then about 3) her first words were "Is the coffee ready yet?" which was such a dead on impersonation of her poppa(me) that my wife and I were laughing for twenty minutes.
2. one morning I was working on the computer in our living room, my wife asleep in our bedroom. Our youngest, would usually pad into the living room, check on poppa, then go and curl up with mommy. Well, one morning I hear my wife walk into the kitchen and yell for me and covered from head to toe and in a snowdrift (coffee drift) all around her was an almost full (now sadly empty) canister of coffee, she smiled looked up at us and said "Gonna make for poppa"
They'll only "remember" these moments through the frequent retellings we'll give them through family gatherings and whatnot, but they are the moments that make four individual humans a family.
If adults without kids invite you over be advised they might not be prepared for the dangers their life style can be to a child.
2. But, then there was the stomach flu when he was eighteen months old and coming out of both ends. After giving him a bath while drying him, he promptly went on both me and my husband from both ends also.
3. Searching the zoo for a lost stuffed bunny 20 years ago that my 21 year old daughter still has - so very happy to find it.
They would fall asleep peacefully, and all was good in the world. Over the 4-5 years of doing this I must have walked a few marathon's worth, and suffered from a numb arm from the sling's buckle. But, like all the other things we did for the boys that they would never remember, it was worth it. The memories may not live in their minds, but they are evident in their hearts.
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Never again will I purchase a used car.