Her Awesome Memory

"Every man's memory is his private literature. " -Aldous Huxley

I know you know my kid is smart.  I know I've fully demonstrated every aspect of her smartness, and I promise this blog is not about how smart Maeve is.

That being said, I've noticed that she inherited my memory skills, and her father's, too.  Daddy and I both have an excellent memory, both for stupid facts and also for things we've learned in the past.  I still remember the Order of Operations in algebra, the order from species up to kingdom in nomenclature, the parts of a cell, random physics facts, and all kinds of stuff my brain hasn't needed to know in twelve years.  I also have big chunks of Hamlet memorized.  It's a tight ship in there.

I noticed Maeve has an awesome memory because of library books.  We have them all for exactly a week, and if she really likes a book, she can tell me the title and fill in words when I read aloud after one day.  No kidding.  I actually felt like my heart stopped when she handed me a book and said "Mommy, read When Mammoths Walked the Earth?"  I couldn't remember having told her the title and I thought, oh my god, is she reading that?  There's no way she's reading that.  Then I remembered I'd read the title to her once, two days ago.  But you'd better believe I'm on the lookout for signs of reading, still.

We have been listening to Christmas music in the car for two weeks, and Maeve knows lyrics to some of my odder holiday songs- like Christmas in Killarney, and It Feels Like Christmas from the Muppet Christmas Carol.  She knows a few of  the 12 Days of Christmas (from 5 on down), and even came up with some of the Fraggle Rock theme song lyrics yesterday, because she likes to dance to that song.

So I know some things in school will be easier for her, because of her memory.  If she's anything like me, she'll be able to study eight minutes before a test and remember almost everything.  And if she's like me at all, she'll relish the challenge of tests that don't just require her to memorize facts, but really think deeply and synthesize information; I hope she does, anyway, because those tests will be harder for her.  But I have always felt that having a good memory is a real blessing- it sure helps when your impatient 2 year old asks you to sing There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly and will know if you mess up the verses...

Maybe we should enroll her in piano lessons?