Moms use many things to gauge their success as a parent. Comparing themselves to others, for example. But sometimes, we just know when we've done something right. Or when we haven't.
I recently realized something I didn't do right and now I can't go back in time and do anything about it. And I am one to lament missed opportunities because I have a bit of an obsessive personality. Not the good obsessive that would mean I have a clean house, but the kind of obsessive that means I don't let things go.
So here is my confession: I have failed to keep track of my two beautiful children's milestones. Any of them. I have no idea when they got their first teeth. Learning to walk? A guess, at best. But the one that is on my mind the most is measuring them. They have grown so tall! All I want to see is a record of them shooting up like weeds. I want one of those charts that good parents have showcasing growth spurts and month by month changes.
I know I could start one now, but it's a bit late. Hannah will be five in a month. I want those first five years tracked! I want to see her from a teeny, tiny baby to the willowy girl she is today. I want to compare how and when she grew to how and when Jacob is growing. But I can't. And I never will get those years back. No matter how much I obsess about it.
A Calloused Foot
13 years ago
Posts
For the height and weight, your doctor should have them documented. So you could at least get the measurements from those visits. Early on, they may even have msot of the other milestones documented. Ask the next time your there as all may not be lost!
ReplyDeleteGreat point! Then, just put little squiggly tick marks somewhere on a wall (pretending that you've lived where you are now for all those years), and it's like you were tracking it the whole time! Like Hannah will remember!
DeleteI know they have height and weight recorded up to about 2. Then I think even they stopped measuring them! But I will ask, even though it will be embarrassing...
ReplyDeleteAw Carolyn,
ReplyDeleteYou are still a GREAT Mom. Nothing can change that and when the kids grow up, the last thing on their minds, when they think of you, will be whether or not you were an astute record keeper. They will have great laughs about what they did when they were growing up because you wrote about them with so much love and humour! Donna