Remember everything

Here you go. Dad already ordered tickets to go to Pskov for Leo, they stayed and enough, it's time to reunite. Of course, we delighted the boy:

• Wait, dad will come soon.

The boy was delighted, as always, in his own way:

• Dad? What are we going to do with him? ABOUT! Let's go to the Cafe-Gorka, as we walked with mom!

The adults present during the conversation were somewhat surprised: what kind of cafe-town? Cafe under the hill? On the hill? Near the hill?

Although I understood which institution my son has in mind, I gave him the opportunity to convey his thought:

• The cafe is all big. I drank apple juice there, threw myself with balls and rode from a hill. And the hill is a ship!

• Big, like a ship? - Grandfather became interested.

• No. Gorka is a ship!

Since the older relatives were about to laugh at the “children's fantasies” (which is fraught with lion's insults), I had to intervene and explain that the hill in the gaming center is really in the shape of a ship, with ropes and an assault. And then details rained from the lion: which girl he met on the hill, what they painted, how they quarreled with the boy for the right to “steer a ship” ... events, I note, three -month ago. What a vindictive child, however,!

In general, the question of the lion's memory now worries me especially acutely. The child was almost thrown into his grandmother for a year - how will this affect him, on our relationship? The comforters say - they say, he will not even remember, the little one more. And I doubt something.

Baby memory is an amazing process. Someone does not remember anything from preschool childhood, someone keeps memories from two or three years of age. A newborn can recall his mother and after a month of separation, and he will not recognize dad in a couple of days.

There is still no unambiguous scientific data on how children's memory is formed and developing. So this “industry” is rich in legends-about kids who remember their “previous lives”, about “indigo children”, preserving the moment of birth and even moments before that. By the way, we also have a family legend on this subject. About how the nine -month -old Leo accurately found out the place of his father's work, wandering into it with his finger and reporting the “dad”, although before that he was there only in an intricate, let's say, condition. Everyone, of course, knows that this is a coincidence. But the thought "What if the children really remember something from the road?" Sometimes it flashes.

With the children themselves, the memory also plays as he wants. He throws some insignificant, at first glance, details, wiping entire layers of events and even significant people. Alexander, for example, completely forgot his great -grandmother, who spent a lot of time with him, nursed and indulged almost until the school itself. But the birds and animals that she cut out of the books and allowed him to glue on the wall - very little, there was no year - he remembers. He remembers the smell of great -grandmother pies with cabbage that he loved her salty cucumbers - too. But the man himself - as if there were no. No devil, no voice, no action. Maybe the memory thus protected the child from loss? I got rid of the need to realize that a loved one died? If so, it is very gracious on her part.

But in general, I am never able to predict that my children will remember and what will forget. Sasha, it seemed to me, had to remain not too unpleasant memories from early childhood-against the backdrop of a divorce of parents. And he remembers his first designer of Lego, the address of one of the rented apartments (taught by heart, so as not to get lost) and some red sandals that, it turns out, did not like terribly, but was forced to wear according to his parental order. I, no matter how hard I try, I can’t find evidence of the existence of this unfortunate shoes in my own memory.

Leo, too, is already surprisingly surprised by the selectivity of memorization. Once we, three-year-old, spent two weeks in Rostov. We went to the museum at the paleontological exhibition, saw a huge skeleton of a dinosaur, and carried out almost real excavations. We went to the zoo, heard a real tiger growl, fed the squirrel from the hand. In the end, in a new setting, in a foreign apartment, lived with a dog, did not joke with a cat and even received injuries ... But does he remember that? No! He remembers exactly one moment - how we went home by train and ate ice cream. But with all the details - how an uncle sold this ice cream right on the train, what color the packaging was, how it was melting, dripping and I had to wrap it in several napkins. Why this moment? A large riddle.

A! The election lion's memory was made by another cunning feint: she took and wiped all my attempts to engage in reading with a child. And after all, manuals on the theme of the favorite cartoon about Prostokvashino were created with your own hands, cards were cut out according to the syllabic methodology of Zaitsevs, a lot of time and effort was spent. But several months have passed - and Leo categorically refuses: "I don’t remember anything, there was nothing." True, I repeatedly learned to quickly fold the syllables-maybe the forgotten skill still works, or maybe the time just came.

I am a little offended - how many efforts were lost in vain. Although, of course, the main thing is not that the son remembers letters and syllables. In the end, readers can also teach him to read and read it. It is more important for me that the small random shredions of his children's memories are bright and warm. After all, this is the only thing that nothing can never be replaced and cannot be fixed in any way - the memory of childhood.

Elena Cherepitskaya .

To be continued.

For the previous publication, see here .