Earlier this week I read an article on Yahoo! (article might be too strong of a word here...) boldly claiming that because of all the millions of pictures that we, as a society, take these days, the muscle in the brain that retains our memories will stop working.  Apparently, since that muscle feels so dejected and useless, it has given up recording anything, and as a result, we will not be able to retain any long term memories on our own without the crutch of a digital image.  Of course, there were no studies done or numbers crunched, just some random smarty pants making a blanket statement regarding all of humanity, out of thin air.  Sounds suspiciously like a government hack.  Still...could this be true?

I pondered this supposed phenomenon this morning, during a quiet minute with my smallest little angel.  It was a rare, peaceful slice of time, when the stars aligned and fate kept all four of the other kids and Robert happily busy in other rooms. Worried that this tiniest of moments would soon be forgotten, I tried as hard as I could to capture the details with my sullen and soon to be 'permanently on strike' brain muscle.  Would I never remember Emmett's eyes flutter open in wonder and the slow smile stretch across his face as he felt my machine-gun kisses against his temple.  How could I never again remember the feel of his fine, blond hair against my cheek; a soft downy, Johnson and Johnson's clean wisp of softness.  It was frightening to think, that without my ever present camera, I would never recall his serious little face as he concentrated on grabbing my fingers with his pudgy little hands.  A lofty goal considering the lack of control he has over his limbs.  Undeterred, Emmet kept throwing his arms forward in jerky little lunges.  And then, against all odds, his face suddenly brightened with joy as his fingers found mine, latching on in a surprisingly tight grip.  Success!!  Looking quiet proud of himself, Emmett, twisted his head up to look at me and in a very serious tone for one so young, said, "Oooooaa.  Aaoooh.  Ooooh."  Ah, yes.  So easy to translate at this age.  But for those who are not in the know, I will repeat his conversation in grown up language.  He was happy him arms obeyed his order of getting his hands to their intended target. It was a daunting and arduous challenge, but he felt confident in his skill-set to accomplish all he put to his mind.  He also wanted to thank his Mama for always believing in him.  An so on and so forth.  After his rather wordy speech, Emmett celebrated his achievement by swiftly shoving my hand to his mouth to be properly chewed on.

I smiled to witness such an accomplishment..then I frowned remembering Mr. Know-it-all-so-I'll-write-an-unverifiable-yahoo-article's argument.  This little moment, apparently, is doomed to disintegrate into nothingness as my offended brain muscle refuses to do his job, sulking in some other dark, corner of my brain.  All because I took too many pictures and didn't need him anymore!  This angers me.  I don't want to forget this particular moment.  I don't mind forgetting the dirty house I had to clean and *gasp* did not take a picture of.  In fact, I freely release most of my doldrums, everyday memories.  Do we need that in writing?  "I solemnly declare the freedom of all memories related to poopy diapers or smelly, rotten lunches left in lunch boxes over the weekend.  Flee.  Be gone!"  But those small, unrehearsed moments that make it all worth while?

I decided that I would coax my muscle brain into at least a part-time job by laying on the flattery.  But then, suddenly, I remember something (a different brain muscle who doesn't have a grudge against me came through with a small factual tidbit.)  Even before this digital world became our current reality, my memory muscle never really seemed to be on his game.  It's true!  Long before I started taking pictures of my children's lives at a rate of one photo per every 7.38 seconds, my little brain muscle was already doing a pretty poor job.   Ask anyone.  Names.  People.  Events.  That lazy of muscle of mine has never been of too much service.

Back in the neon 80's you were lucky if you had your snap-click camera on you and even if you did manage to catch an awesome, crimped hair, rainbow-jellied bangles moment, you still had to wait until you had a chance to run to Longs to get it developed.  And then you'd have to wait (dare I say it?) at least a week before you could pick them up again.  A whole week before you could remember anything...thus allowing that ol' brain muscle all the time in the world to do his job properly.  Even with that higher sense of purpose, my little brain muscle managed to do the bare minimum.  I guess his threshold of importance is a lot higher than most other people's memory muscles.  He's just a little too awesome to remember just any old memory on the best of days.  Haughty little thing.

I'm starting to realize that Mr. Smarty Pant's theory is not only most likely a pile of unicorn poop, but was most likely recycled from a dooms-day prophet from our past.  Can't you remember reading something back in the day about how those new IBM computers would rot our children's minds?  I'm sure an article in the Press Democrat pompously declared that by allowing people to write down just as many memories as they wanted to, using as many words as they could think of, they would render their memory brain muscle quiet useless.  Why would it possibly remember anything if you just have it written down anyway!  Gone are the good old days where you had to pass your genealogy down by chanting beautiful, lengthy soliloquies around a blazing fire.

So, now I've decided.  I'm going to allow my little memory muscle to continue to scrape by doing the bare minimum.  (Really, what other choice to I have?)  I'm going to hope that he finds this sweet little memory of a just-barely-five-month old Emmett worth retaining.  However, just in case he's too busy being dramatic, I'm gong to go and snap a few pictures.