When the brain starts turning to mush

I was sending an email to school about our youngest last week and was indicating her class and age, when I found my fingers hovering over the keyboard uncertainly. Was she 13 or 14? I wasn't sure! Had I (finally) reached that point in life when parents are not exactly sure how old their children are?

I turned to my colleague in surprise and told him I could not remember my own child's age and was somewhat comforted when he said he too sometimes had to pause and think for a while before he could place his own in the correct age brackets. And I bet if I were to ask my mother how old we – her children – are today (there are seven of us), she would throw her hands in the air and say, "I don't know, you tell me!" If you're a parent, especially a mother, I'm sure you remember when the children first arrived (especially the first one). You knew absolutely everything about them. Some have even kept journals to record that first smile, first burp, first tooth, first word (although this one is a bit controversial as some mums swear the child said "mama" while the dads insist it was "baba"), the first time they raised their heads independently, first steps, first day of school, first solid meal... Allow me to digress a little here. I remember our eldest's first weaning meal of mashed and strained pawpaw. I was very excited about this milestone and overdid things, making a whole bowl instead of just a few spoons.

My mother was there – wise and experienced woman – and warned me that the pawpaw I had prepared was too much for a baby's first meal of anything besides milk. Of course I didn't listen and continued to coax the baby to slurp one more spoon of liquid pawpaw. And he was fine, so I thought, until the very last spoon had gone down his throat and everything came back up and all over us. I did not dare look in my mother's direction as I picked the baby and went to get us both cleaned up. But back to ages – I remember when our eldest was in kindergarten and we attended a meeting of parents and teachers at the school. One man stood up to ask a question and said confidently that his son was three-years-old. His wife, seated next to him, swiftly corrected him: "He's three and a half!"

I also recall how excited the hubby and I were whenever we attended those first sports days and music concerts for the older two. Like many other young and enthusiastic parents at the time, we would come ready with our cameras to capture every precious moment to be preserved in the family photo albums (remember those?). Well, when the youngest arrived several years later, we were older and had perhaps slowed down a little. It was about an hour into a school event when the hubby and I looked at each other in horror – we had forgotten to bring the camera! Those were one of the very few times I have been thankful for the presence of paparazzi. It's not just the young ones' ages I'm having to think carefully about these days. Many are the times when I open my mouth to call one and the name does a disappearing act on me. Sometimes I end up calling all the names except the one I want. Our older daughter is appalled that I cannot remember my own children's names yet there are only three of them. At least my mother had an excuse – with seven names to remember, she often picked one or more at random and whoever responded would be the one to do whatever she wanted done.

In addition to occasionally forgetting their names, and now ages, I also cannot keep up with the older ones' education. Once they finished high school, I lost track of whether they were in first or second year and even the correct names of the courses they chose. To be able to answer questions from friends and relatives about how the children are doing and where they are now, I have taken to asking them frequently: "What did you say you were doing? And what year are you in now? And when will you finish?" Thankfully, they are patient with me and are happy to explain their courses, units and class times repeatedly. Maybe I should write all this information down and pin it on a wall somewhere to help me keep it together.