I’m going to be honest. I am not one of those moms who creates elaborate scrapbooks of each event and holiday. In fact, I don’t even have pictures in my seven-year-old’s baby book. I have notes about which pictures I want to include, but I haven’t gotten around to actually ordering or printing them.
I’m like your typical mom with three kids: The first child has more of her life recorded than the rest. Her birthday parties were more elaborate, and she has far more professional photographs than the other two (again, just not pasted into her baby book…oops). She even has her “Year One” photo frame filled in with her cute monthly pictures in each little slot.
The other two? I’ve had the frames for several years now and haven’t touched them. I’m pretty sure I took all of their monthly pictures, though I can promise you they weren’t all taken on the same day every month. BUT I don’t beat myself up, because I’m doing my best and I will get around to it all…eventually. Maybe when they head to college and I’m an empty nester with nothing better to do than reminisce?
What I have done to try to make special memories of their childhood is, I hope, something they will cherish far more than whether or not I documented the dates of when they grew their baby teeth:
I write them a letter every year on their birthdays.
I include their favorite things, important events that happened that year, milestones, and the millions of ways I am proud of them and excited to see what the next year brings for them.
I’m still trying to decide WHEN exactly to give them these birthday letters—when they turn 18? Does the first child keep it a secret until the other two eventually turn 18? I haven’t gotten that far, but I have a while to think about it. Right now, the letters are tucked safely away out of reach. My children are sentimental (though that could change in the next decade), so I pray they appreciate the thought that went into these birthday letters. Honestly, I’m excited to go back one day and read them, too!
At this point in my “mom life,” this is about as extra as I’ve gotten. I still give myself an imaginary pat on the back for thinking of writing these birthday letters and actually following through with writing them. It’s hard being a mom, and anything we can do to document these years that fly by so, so quickly is, I think, pretty amazing.
