creativity, joy, and the need to remember always

This post is less for my readers and more for me. As I was sitting at the computer today reading one of c. jane's birth stories the baby girl walked into the living room with three of my rubber scrapers and she told me that they were a traffic light. Yellow, Red, and Green. She proceeded to do a little dance and sing a little song.









We've both already forgotten the words she sung. I managed to capture the images, though.

This is what I hate about the mothering journey. There are so many moments where I just want to stop time and hold the frame. I want to savor it and never forget. Yet we do forget. Even when I am consciously attempting to record it so that I never forget.

What happened was as quickly as she had danced her rubber scraper traffic light dance and sung her rubber scraper traffic light song she noticed a cardboard box in the wastebasket. She needed that.

Suddenly the rubber scrapers were not a traffic light. They were paddles for a boat. She needed sticky tape. She ran back and forth to the recycling bin. She was building a cardboard boat.











In my desire to capture this new adventure I forgot the words to the traffic light song. So did she. When I asked her, she couldn't remember. It wasn't important to her. She was living in the moment and that was now a distant past.


ETA - This is what the boat currently looks like: