Now that Maddie has turned one she acts as if she got a memo from baby headquarters instructing her to grow up and fast. For example, not too long ago she would just flail about on her stomach like an Irishman the day after St. Patrick’s Day if I set her down, but now she sits up like a big kid! This alone has been hard enough to wrap my head around, but then Maddie did something amazing last weekend – she pulled herself up on her toy piano and looked over at me standing! It looked something like this:

I like the air up here!I dig the air up here!

After a few seconds Maddie let out a cute little giggle as if to say, “Dude! What the heck am I doing? How did I get up here?” It was pretty shocking. I honestly don’t think I would have been all that much more surprised if she rolled her eyes at me and lit up a cigarette.

I try to burn all these memories into my brain so I will always have them with me, but the sad truth is that I’ve already forgotten so much about my life with Maddie. I look at old photos of us together and try to summon up what it felt like to hold her when she was so much smaller, or to see her smile for the first time, but I can’t. Not exactly. Why is it that I have trouble remembering something so important about my precious little girl, but will go to the grave with all of the lyrics to “MMMBop” stuck in my head?

Even worse is that Maddie more than likely won’t remember any of this stuff either. My Dad sometimes asks me if I remember living at a home we had until I was two, but I always have to say that I don’t. On the other hand a friend of mine did recently tell me she remembers laying in her crib and watching her parents having sex when she was a six-month-old, so maybe babies can remember these early days. Of course with my luck Maddie will remember none of the good things I do for her, but have some weird memory of me walking around in my underwear and scratching my butt.

I guess the point is that life is short enough as it is without our memories failing us for so much of it, and we really need to appreciate every moment. Thankfully there is technology to help…like the following Youtube of Maddie sitting up and dancing!