When I was twelve my best friend's family's house burnt down. We were all at the YMCA swimming; it was a huge blessing that none of the kids had stayed home. Her older sister wanted to stay home to take a nap, but the rest of us begged her to come swimming with us. I will never forget driving up to the smoking remains of their house after receiving the phone call at the Y to hurry home. Another blessing was that with all of the things that were destroyed, one of the few things that was preserved was the collection of family history and baby books for all nine kids that their mom had carefully put together over the years. Those books are even more treasured today.
When I was a baby my mom kept a baby book with photos, lists of words I could say, and stories about both my mom and me. Some stories are funny, others are sweet and tender like how I would reach up at night to ruffle her "curlies" before drifting off to sleep. And some told about her life as a new mother both the good and the exhausting. Because my mom died when I was seven, this is an extra special treasure to me.
I've tried to be diligent about recording Sam's life from the beginning. I decided early on that the most important thing was to simply record the important things, not to have a perfect, charming-looking album. I knew if there was too much pressure about how it looked that it would never get done. But if I could just jot things down here and there, there was a much better chance that in twenty years Sam would have something to look back on.
So, I got a fat, black 3-ring binder, some cardstock that I punched holes in and some sheet protectors, and that was it. I used it as a journal, photo album and a place to tuck souvenirs and important papers. I know it's not archival quality and whatnot, like they say it's supposed to be. But I figure I'll make a digital copy and preserve it that way at some point. The important thing is that I ended up using it a lot. I wrote letters to Sam telling him how much I love him and telling him about what amazing progress he made in his first year. I taped in a list of words he knew when he was 17 months old and pictures of him walking when walking was so new, as well as clippings of historic events that happened during his first year of life.
Recently I realized I had a bunch of pictures that I had yet to include in the album. So I lined them all up on the table in chronological order to be inserted. And then I got distracted. And there they sit still, while we eat meals around them! But, don't worry, I will get to them eventually...
