If I have one piece of advice for new moms, it is this. Write everything down: every cute word your little one says, every hilarious poop episode, every time you cry with joy at something that they have said or done. Because, although it might not seem like it in the moment, you will forget. After all, when they are so little, they are your world and every moment seems like one you'll never let go of. But forget you will as more memories are made and the moments come faster and faster.
 If you do write things down, there will come a day when you  need those memories so badly, it hurts. That one day was yesterday in our house. My children had all been ill at different times and the same times for the last 9 days. I felt like we were living in a bacteria filled bubble, the walls closing in on us, a cough echoing from every room. Humidifiers were at critical shortage levels and nasal spray was being passed around like candy. My husband was at work and we had just sat through another dinner with a tissue box close at hand. Then, my oldest son asked me to bring out the "dailies."
 When my oldest was four months old, I started a journal of our lives together. Some of the entires were funny, some were sad and some were just milestones I wanted to remember. As more children came, the "dailies" became weeklies but meant just as much as the originals had. Luckily, before our last computer crashed,  I had printed out most of what I had. And last night, we needed them.
  As I sorted through papers, my oldest was awash in advice and excitement, "Tell the one about me potty training, tell the one about her in the tub..." These stories were legend in our house and probably would never be forgotten. But as I went through the mostly one line entries, the ones that stuck out were not accepted family history. I did that weird laugh-cry that always scares my kids when I read about my oldest calling the hummingbirds "humee-nins" as we watched them on our feeder. I read about trying to keep a straight face when my younger son, for a time, pronounced "freckle, frog and truck" unmistakably as the f-bomb, and trying to come up with a way to explain death when we saw a dead squirrel in the park and was asked repeatedly when it was going to walk. Or one of my favorites, which took place on a hike through the woods.

Son: "What happened to that black dog?"
Me: "What black dog?"
Son: "The one we saw the other day."
Me: "The one with the cone?"
Son: "Yes."
Me: "You tell me."
Son: "He had a boo-boo on his eye so he had to wear a cone so he wouldn't scratch it."
Me: "good job remembering."

Two minutes later...

Me: "Please stop stepping in front of me."
Son: "Why?"
Me: "Because I'm afraid I'm going to step on your foot and you'll sprain your ankle."
Son: "And I'll have to get a cone?"

Even writing it now, I'm doing that weird laugh-cry thing and my husband is looking worriedly over at me.
  Many of the entries are not funny but a way to vent, as in "You are giving me a run for my money right now, little miss." Some are overflowing with love that I just needed to get down on paper: "When you laugh, it is with your whole heart and soul, from deep in your belly." Some are records of specific events: :"We went on a hike with Santa today" and say nothing more than that.     The entries are many and I am grateful to have every one. They are the moments of our lives that we think we'll never forget, yet somehow they are replaced with more memories, more moments that we will think are unforgettable as well.
 So, if you have children, take my advice and write things down. These moments that they will be unable to access with their own memories will have to come from yours. And there might come a day when you need to remember what it feels like to laugh with them, remember what it feels like to be small,  remember what the world felt like when you and your child seemed like the only inhabitants of it.