I have good intentions. I even have waves of true inspiration. I have supplies, paper, photographs, and memories. I don't even have babies anymore. Why doesn't it get done? I'm way behind on the baby books.
I opened up the book for the "baby" today and noticed that it stops with pictures of him as a 1-week old. Oops. He turned 17 months old this week! Somewhere there must be evidence of his life so far, I just need to get it organized and begin scrapbooking again. (Is "scrapbooking" honestly a verb?) I enjoy it- I really do- it gives me a real sense of satisfaction when I finish a page and flip through the book again to see how it all fits together. I'm not a fanatic, obviously, or I wouldn't be behind in my work.
The girls' books are 8.5x11 and the boys' books are 12x12; each has a slightly different theme. My older sister made the first one with beautiful hand-lettering, colored pencils, gold paint and a sprinkling of marvelous old postage stamps throughout. It was genius as well as a form of genesis. I loved the stamps so much that I began a stamp collection for myself an my daughter. I have used them in each child's book and still have plenty left over.
As fun as the process is, however, the process is not the real point. I do it so my little ones will never forget how much I love them. Sure, I can tell them every day of their lives, but reading about it in your mother's handwriting years and years after the fact is different. Everyone desires to be loved purely, unconditionally, and as if they were totally innocent. This is the kind of love a mother has for her tiny child. Then it changes some over the years- grows bigger, stretches, takes on it's partner: discipline. And that's the kind of love a small child remembers later: the kind that has occasional conditions. She cannot recall the sweet, pure love she enjoyed as an infant- the love her parents gave her freely simply because she existed.
And it isn't possible to put it all in the pages of a book... but I can try.
2 comments:
Beautiful. And I have found in my own small experience that the sense of that pure love from your mother comes again as you love your own babies and realize what your mother must have felt for you. Your kids are lucky to have such beautiful reminders (in progress). Micah, alas has lined note paper and digital photo files; but that is an honest representation of what I have to offer. I'd ask you to make him a book, but never in a million years would he believe it was my work.
Just say the word: what color binder?
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