Creating Memories

As parents, grandparents, teachers and caregivers we are contributing towards our childrens’ first everlasting memories.

It struck me recently that my kids are now of an age where they will start remembering things for life. Unfortunately and frustratingly for many of us, it’s the bad things that stick.

I still remember each and every growling I got at kindy and school, as they were few and far between. At primary school, they were mortifying if you didn’t receive them often. I remember sitting in the teacher’s office, at the same kindy my children now attend, for hitting somebody.  Then again a week later after the teacher’s pointed remark “Jodi, you can sit in the same corner you sat last week,” before she hauled us into the office.

That incident had been all my fault. I had a Winnie the Pooh record with accompanying  book I used to listen to at home. We had one of those big blue slides at kindy which you could stand underneath and I thought it would be a great idea to recreate a scene from my Winnie the Pooh story. In the scene Christopher Robin walked outside with upturned hands and said “Tut, tut, it looks like rain.”

As the word “tut” was not in our vocabulary, it fascinated me. A poor, unsuspecting child volunteered to be Christopher Robin, walking out from under the slide with upturned hands, while a bunch of us climbed to the top, leaned over and created the rain.

“Tut, tut, it looks like rain,” he declared as we spat down on him.

Needless to say, it didn’t end well and we were parked in the office for most of that afternoon.

But my earliest childhood memory (besides getting shampoo in my eyes) is at the age of three, walking into the dining room and seeing the startling sight of my mum sitting at the telephone table crying.

It turns out she’d just had a call to say poppa had died.

I don’t remember anything more from that day but mum recently bumped into her meter reader who does. Her name was Heather Knox and she was a courier driver at the time. Upon sighting each other they both remembered this scene from some 30 year’s ago. Just after I walked in that day, the courier came to the door, saw that mum was upset and consoled her.

That got me thinking. The job of a meter reader, in particular, is seemingly mundane but they must stumble upon many situations like that.

Because they are unlisted contractors, it took me a week to try and track down a meter reading company and finally one returned my call from Auckland and said she had a wonderful lady called Heather Knox who would be a suitable candidate to interview for a story.

Out of all the companies and their contractors, I’d managed to get Heather. It turns out she certainly has seen some sights – some of which can’t be printed – and you can read her story on page (story not included in blog)

Meanwhile I’m trying my best to keep growling limited and create happy memories for my children.