Quicker than you will ever be prepared for...

So my eldest daughter, five years and seven months full of life, size 10T or 11T shoes, little wiggly piggies, sparkly blue eyes, light like mine, the colour of the seven seas, and crystal white shores, not as dark as lapis or sapphire as her sisters, but light like the tranquil waters of the med... has outgrown her baby book!

I found myself today just stupefied. I have new pens that dont go through the pages and that dry the second you write, perfect for harried memorized fleeting treasures and quick pen and parchment capturing.

I turned to the next page only to find there were none.

I turned to look for the next mile stone only to find I had already recorded it.

Yet I read the book like a stranger.

All the wonderment is like that of a voyeur.

The memories escape me like the sweetness of this breath exhaled to the next.

You can try so hard to hold on. I have photographic chains onto every day with my kids. I have them on my hard drive. Backed up to Carbonite. Backed up to the Walmart photostudio. Backed up on printed copies of all my luscious memories that evaporate like smoke through my fingers.

Our feelings change. Our memories are altered and swayed. We believe what we WANT to remember. The memories are enhanced by how we think they should be. Its so gratifying to speak to a sibling or a parent and to find out your memories are almost the same. It seems to give them more credence. I dont necessarily trust my nostalgic recollections. I romanticise everything, remove the harsh light, trade it in for rose coloured glasses, rose coloured petals falling from heaven, everything seemed so easy and peaceful by contrast to today, today was more gruelling, today I cried harder, today was not as satisfying as yesterday, always trying to gain the elusive plateau of satisfaction that actually never existed, we just believed it to be, so therefore it was and is, indelible in the photo album of the mind....

My daughter has long legs like a gazelle. When she grows up she wants to be a mermaid. But she already knows they dont exist. And she has plan B ready and waiting. She can be a mermaid for halloween instead or she can be an actor and pretend to be a mermaid in a mermaid costume.

I bought her her first pair of shoes today with a little one inch heel. They rest at the foot of her bed, whilst my daughter, the girl, dreams of her new school.