The Baby Book

I have been working feverishly this rainy, dreary morning updating Jude's baby book. I don't want to forget a single thing, something I am actually do quite well. 

I think baby books are so important and necessary for children. I know I record every detail of our children growing here on this blog, but I think there is something so special, so comforting about holding, in your hands, the record of the start of a life, smelling and turning the pages, watching ones story unfold. It's almost the prologue to the lives we live.  


I never had a baby book and there was a time I really wish my Mom or Dad had made one for me. They were too busy doing things like working to provide for us and other minor stuff to have the time to record my early years. There came a time in my life (probably during those brutally awkward teenage years) when I would have loved to look at my past, see the looks on family and friends faces as they embraced me for the first time, and visualize how my life unfolded prior to my most vivid and clear memories. I sometimes feel the same way since having children of my own. I often wonder how much I weighed at birth, since I just had a ten pound baby.


And there is the inevitable temptation to compare. For instance, without the girls' baby books, I would have never known that at 2 months, Nyah only weighed 13 lb. 4 oz, and Elsa was 14 lb. 3 oz compared to their brothers who weigh in at 15 lb. 13 oz on his two month visit this Tuesday. They didn't weigh as much as he does now until they were 4 and 5 months, respectively. See isn't that fun? Well, maybe only for a mother (and grandmothers), but whatev. The records seem to show the term "little brother" will only be a numeric formality for these siblings.  


I recently looked through my fathers baby book that his mother so diligently kept. It was very detailed and equally as fascinating to see facts about the start of my Dad's life, to touch his wee little foot prints. The footprints of someone I could never imagine being small.


Nyah's baby book is nearly complete, just one more birthday to record (woah), then the rest is up to her memory. Elsa's is a work in progress and Jude's, well his is still pretty thin, but I am working on it (today). Jude's also gets pretty detailed about the family tree which I must interrogate my mother in law about the next time we meet. Get ready Chris! But I am always up for learning more about the history of my husband and in turn, our children.

I have dreams that I will someday give each kid their baby book when they are expecting children of their own, if they decide to take that path in life, and look and laugh and predict how their new creations will turn out. 


And hopefully they will carry on the baby book tradition because no matter where life takes you, one must never forget where they came from.