The Baby Book: Memory Fest or Guilt Machine?
When my first daughter was born 7 plus years ago I was gifted a book that promised to encapsulate her first five years of milestones… ahh the memories and wonder I would be able to pass to her as she grew to adulthood. I could spend my hours as a new mother thoughtful entering little tidbits of information about Sage, delighting over each new stage. YEAH right! The reality was that I didn’t always remember to write down the things predetermined by this book as ‘important milestones’. OR they were items that we didn’t even really care about at all. And the guilt over trying to get it all down on paper was enough to send me over the edge! I did make attempts. I jotted notes in the book when I remembered, and wrote bits down on our family calendar when I couldn’t get to the book. I saved a lock of hair; though it never actually got pasted IN the book… it’s tucked in there somewhere. A few cards from her first birthday and baby shower are shoved in the back, and a few nice long letters from when I found more than a moment of inspiration came into my mommy-brain.
This of course, was before I even had the added joy of siblings. When the next two babies came along I dutifully bought “The Baby Book” for each of them. But the problems that had reared their head when attempting to actually finish Sage’s book became larger than life now that I was also juggling the needs of three children.Torin’s book has some information and Rhys’s even less. I guess I could just let it all go and push the books to the back of the shelf; I could promise myself that I just wouldn’t feel guilty about it. But, the truth is I do. I don’t want to grow older and let the little moments slip from recorded memory. There is a flip side to that guilt though. I also don’t want to stop LIVING the moments in order to record them all in some elaborate fashion unsuited to my family’s needs. Today I sit pregnant with my 4th child, a much desired and exciting time for both myself and my husband. It is hard to find enough time to go to the bathroom between mothering, home schooling, helping run our company and just being pregnant. You would think I would just give up on the baby books finally! Instead, I gave some real thought to just why I wanted to have a baby book for each of the kids.For me, it came down to this: I want a tangible product to be able to share with my children as they enter puberty and forget how much we doted on them, and again when they embark on their own journey into parenthood. But then I realized this wasn’t about what date they received their first vaccination or when their 6th tooth came in. I just needed to capture a piece of THEM when they were tiny. What made Torin- TORIN? His funny little voice saying “Ya Know Whaaaaaat?” is by far the most important thing I could remember! And Rhys- well she spent the better part of these past two years eating every single food we put near her, and some things that she had to climb on top of the fridge to find! So, I decided to go ahead and gather up those old books, the seven old calendars and put them in a box. Maybe someday I’ll want to really pour through them all and save every little memory, but for now I have a new, simpler plan.I got four little spiral bound books 5”x7”, with room for a few pictures and some highlights of info. And I’m jotting down the real memories, the real moments. 18 pictures later I summed up Rhys’s first 18 months or so and it actually feels like “her”. It took about two hours. Now, on to Sage and Torin… they’ll take a bit more time since there are more years to think about but it feels like time well spent since I’m capturing just who they are, or were when they were tiny too. It’s also one of the best pregnancy rituals I’ve ever taken on. I’m finding focus and loving intention towards my little in-utero baby just by flipping through all the newborn pictures in my Picasa files, and soon I’ll be ready to write down a new birth date and name in that forth book.
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