My Unfortunate Favorite Memory

We were living in Portland at the time, Taylor was approximately 6 months old. We were fully overwhelmed as parents, but taking it in stride. Oh yeah, and it was Mother's Day. My first Mother's Day.

Let me let you in on a little secret before I begin. As a parent, planning is everything but also nothing. You can work your ass off to ensure the little one gets a three hour nap - but maybe that day they decided to keep you on your toes and took three twenty minute naps (if you're lucky).

It's when the stars align that you really feel like you have your shit together. The problem is that the stars aligning is terribly misleading, and what was thought of as competence was actually luck. The saying "Luck counts, but don't count on luck" has become an ingrained motto since Taylor was born.

But back to the memory. We were sitting outside of Wetzel's Pretzels, salivating over the smell of freshly baked dough while deciding on what exactly we were supposed to do next. You see, it was coming on 4 pm. We could:
    a) Leave for home then (this mall was approximately 45 minutes away from our house) OR
    b) Eat dinner at the mall, knowing that we were coming into Tay's witching hour and risk it anyway

While we were deciding, Taylor decided to take it upon herself to be incredibly cute. You've all seen her pictures. It's a common occurrence. She started squealing.

And holy crap did we become the most obnoxious parents ever. Not only did we encourage the behavior, but we started making the sound back, much to the chagrin of every other person in the mall. We didn't care. We were playing with the cutest baby in the world.

Here's the kicker: this isn't my favorite part of my favorite memory. It's what happened at dinner.

What happened at dinner, you ask?

Nothing.

Nothing happened at dinner.

Chris and I got to eat our first meal together, while Taylor stared innocently at the wall, cooing, babbling, and being 100% content to do 100% nothing. We got to be a couple, instead of a family.

That's why I call this my unfortunate favorite memory. It's because we all experience these moments in time that we repeat in our heads saying, "I really want to remember this moment" - and months down the road, we don't. (It's one of the reasons I blog). I'm not sure that I would always want to admit that this was one of my favorite memories.
 
Instead we are left with nasty memories, random moments, and something that you didn't really think was that important.

But reflecting on this particular moment, I've come to realize that it meant much more than I thought it would. Because being a parent is about balance. It's balancing Lindsey as a mom, Lindsey as a wife, and Lindsey as Lindsey. And this memory, this dinner, shows me that it's all possible.