Photo by melc24

I can root through my boxes of stored books and come upon one that was created for me. This book, covered with soft, squishy pleather, whose cover is graced by blue birds holding a banner, contains important details of my early years. I can find out, since I obviously won’t remember, when I took my first steps, what my first words were, and how many presents I got at my first birthday party.

Somewhere around my second birthday, in likelihood due to their separation, my parents stopped updated that book. It’s as if my childhood ceased to exist on paper, kind of. And I’m guilty of the same.

It took me almost a year after her birth for me to buy a baby book for my daughter. I had a hard time finding one I approved of, since I wanted to stay away from commercial characters (Winnie-the-Pooh seemed so gauche back then), and some of the pages that I would have to fill would have been left blank, such as sections devoted to religious passages. No grown-up baby wants to look at a blank page!

I needed the perfect book, if I was going to do this memory-keeper task right. And I never found it. I did find one that was good enough, but once I started making entries in the appropriate fields, it seemed less-than-stellar. My penmanship was too messy, details were to scarce or there wasn’t enough room to add a paragraph of responses. I quickly walked away from it, and now it sits in storage next to my own barely-remembered book.

This is one of the things that plagues me as a do-all-superwoman-wannabe mom. That darn book of shame. It seems a testament to my proclivity for lack of motivation and follow-through, and an example of how, from the very beginning, I didn’t ace this whole ‘being a perfect mom’ task I set out to do.

Further compounding this lack of carefully updated book is the fact that there exists nary a full photo album, even though in my daughter’s less than three years of life, I’ve taken thousands of pictures. They’re all saved in digital format between two computers, a few blogs and two photo-sharing accounts – but they’re not tangible. No grandparents will get to come over for Mother’s Day and flip through my stacks of albums.

Bad mommy.

But, here’s my saving grace: I started January 1st with a bang of a New Year’s Resolution. I wasn’t going on a diet, or going to the gym daily. I didn’t elect to save 10% of all my income, as a means to begin a serious college fund (that’s a subject for another post). I picked the vaguest resolution that I could, one that can be shaped into any occasion: I will do more.

Photo by Alanna George

Which means I need to get on that baby book, finally.

Problem is, my penmanship is still pretty rusty – what do you expect when you type all day long, right? And there’s still going to be blanks on some pages; not enough room to fit it all in, on others.

I’m a creative thinker, when I try to be – which is why this weekend, I’ll be embarking on the largest task I’ve ever undertaken at one time, since she was born: I’ll be collecting all  of those digital files, editing the images and creating multiple photo books.

I’ve decided to forget the one-size-fits-all baby book; I’m embracing the new designs that Photoworks has just rolled out. Pink Damask will ensconce the memories from her birth to her first birthday; this design will hold everything that took place during her next year; by the time that she’s turned three, there will likely be even more choices of designs.

I’m actually pretty excited. This will be easy (once I get the footwork dealt with), end in a gorgeous finish, and she’ll have books to flip through at my age that contain all of her childhood.

Just don’t tell her how long it took me to put them together, okay?

Hi, I’m Terra and I have dreams of being a perfect mom, while putting out the effort of a lazy senior feline. Tell me, did you start a baby book or scrapbook for your child? I bet you’ve been a lot better than I at updating it. Let me know in the comments any tips or commiserations you have to share about preserving those photo (and milestone) memories!