For A Little While

Memory is a funny thing.  I always wonder what things my children will remember from their childhood and what other things will slowly fade away.  Photos and repetition of stories help, but we know some things will be lost forever.

When Jack was a toddler he didn't play with traditional toys, and he was more than a little bit obsessed with "plugs".  He spent a great deal of time playing with random objects like bottle caps, sink stoppers, bathtub plugs, old door bells, and wine corks (he named his wine cork Corkia).  I'm not talking about a phase that lasted for a few weeks, this bordered on obsession, and lasted for at least a year (maybe even longer).  It got to the point where we had to limit his time with his plugs (which he called the family).  I looked back at past entries and I had written about "the family", and limiting obsessive tendencies with plugs several times because it was such an issue.

Last weekend, Jack came into the bedroom and handed me a brand new bathroom tub plug with a chain (one we had purchased him from the dollar store a few years ago).  As he plopped it into my hand he ask softly, "Why is this in my toy box? It's not a toy." I asked him if he was joking, he was not.  Even Molly was at a loss for words, having lived with a brother who would parallel play with his plugs as she used more traditional toys.  "Jackie, don't you remember the family and all of your plugs?" she asked.  He admitted he did, a little bit, and left his old plug on the table beside our bed because he no longer connected with it.

How could something he spent so many hours playing with, that was one of his comfort items in the toddler years be wiped clean as if the Men in Black had shown up with their magic mind eraser pen?

Image courtesy of Giphy

While this memory loss confounds us, it's actually really common and often referred to as childhood amnesia.  Research has determined that little kids can remember many things from when before they are three years old, but as they age, with seven years old being some sort of marker, their autobiographical memories from their younger years will disappear.  So there is nothing to worry about, although I must admit the loss of this memory makes me a little sad.

A Canadian based research study has found some of the cause, apparently, "When brains are busy growing lots of new cells, they don’t store memories that would otherwise be long-term."  The research has found that kids aged five to seven remember about 60 percent of their memories from early life, whereas kids aged eight or nine only remember 40 percent of these memories.

Research Patricia Bower says of memory studies surrounding children, "Early in development those structures are working, but not very efficiently -- children are forming memories, but through natural processes those are fading and becoming inaccessible. By the time you reach adulthood, those memories are working very effectively.”

One of the reasons I love keeping this blog up to date is to record moments that might otherwise disappear.  There are so many smaller things that would otherwise be lost, or go down the drain, especially now that the plugs are gone.

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Since You've Been Gone

Every once in a while I find myself wondering about the impact we've made in Molly and Jack's lives so far.  I know that on a basic needs scale that we've done the hunting and the gathering, that we've nurtured them and comforted them and that we try to teach them little things like how annoying whining is (Molly) and how you shouldn't try to shove a pair of scissors into a plug outlet (Jack).*  I know they're quite fond of us by the way that they squeal and run towards us at daycare pickup or the ways in which they require baby kangaroo treatment whenever they're feeling ill.  What I'm wondering is do we have a more profound impact on our children at age two than say a mama bear with her cubs?** 

Toddler memories are complex and something which can be recalled by them at four may not be remembered by the time they're a teenager.  Essentially, little brains are always developing.  More memories wipe away old ones and at age two, the way they access their memories today is going to be very different with each year that passes.  Some of what I read talks about how language development is needed in order for people to be able to properly store and access their memories along with the development of self-concept.  This memory barrier is called childhood amnesia and refers to a child's inability to recall memories before age three or four.

Earlier this week Chris went away on a business trip leaving me solo with the minions.  Repeatedly Molly would ask me, "Where's dad?" and when I answered, "On a trip for work in Vancouver." I knew that it meant absolutely nothing to her because even though she's been to BC I'm sure that she doesn't remember it or understand beyond, "Dad's not here right now."  She also asked me the question, on loop about once every hour the entire time he was away. 


On Sunday afternoon Molly grabbed a copy of Douglas Coupland's book The Gum Thief from off of our coffee table.  She opened the book jacket to the author bio and pointed at Mr. Coupland and yelled, "Daddy!"  I explained to Miss Molly that although I am a huge Coupland fan, I'm fairly confident that he's not the father of my children.  On Tuesday night my brother came over to help wrangle the kids and read them a bed time story, also by Mr. Coupland (AKA not your daddy).  After Uncle D. finished the story I opened the book jacket and asked who the man on the cover was.  Answer: "Daddy", naturally.

I informed Chris that night that he had been replaced by a book jacket photo.  He was amused.  

Douglas Coupland - image courtesy of Wikipedia

Chris - the resemblance is uncanny, No?

I think one of the many reasons I started this blog was because I wanted some sort of record or imprint that someone could hand the kids if anything ever happened to me.   This way they could know how much I care about them.  Here's hoping we have many years of memories that stick with them, or at the very least a flattering book jacket photo to watch over them.


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*It's not that we provide him with scissors to play with, it's that he's getting more and more creative and taller and can reach new things each day.
**Which for all I know is extremely complex.  Unfortunately, I didn't minor in neurology or memory imprint patterns of mammals in my Canadian literature degree.