Will you remember this?

I remember being eight. I remember liking being eight. It was fun - no responsibilities and lots of time outside with friends and I made relatively few decisions. My Mom and Dad made sure my life was full and wonderful.

And maybe it is because I had such a happy childhood (thanks, Mom and Dad!) that I sometimes wonder if I am making enough lasting memories for my son. I mean - on the one hand - his life is magic. We go on amazing vacations, he is crazy loved and he has lots of opportunities that I never had. But on the other hand, I often wonder what memories he will retain from this time and reflect back on in his adulthood.

I know I am not alone in this. A lot of parents say that they are worried they are not creating enough lasting memories. Interestingly, they say their best moments as a family are playing games. (Side note: We love games in our family!) But a lot of families also say that they usually just end up watching television together.

This made me rethink how we spend our free time as a family. Do we curl up together at night to watch movies? Yes. Of course we do. But we also play games and try to have weekend adventures and look for new things to do.

But we are parents. And we get tired.

So, we started inviting our son into more conversations on what we do as a family - like with vacations. And I hope that having him involved in the planning will help him retain memories of the vacation longer. Because that is what I want...for us to remember the good times we spend together and not the details of the shows we watched.

Do you ever wonder what your child's first memory will be? Tell me in the comments.