Simple Sundays: Keeping Track of Memories

Hi.  My name is Elizabeth and I am terrible about updating baby books.

When I had my first daughter I bought the super cute, super traditional baby book.  I was SURE that I was going to keep track of every milestone, fill it with pictures and she would be proud of the memories.

That lasted until I got out of the hospital.

I did an ok job keeping track of her milestones but I always found the book SO hard to use!  I mean, what if she gets teeth before she crawls or if she says a word before she starts to walk!  I have to remember what things to look for, find the right page, remember when it happened, oh my.  So yes, there are big things in there but lets just say if she wants to use it for a scientific record of when these things happened in her life for future research she will be disappointed.

Then there comes the problem of when they are old enough to create things.  Seriously, my first kid I don't want to throw ANY paintings, drawings, hand prints, or pen markings away.  Ok, maybe I'm not quite that attached...but these certainly don't fit neatly into a baby book so now what do I do with all that STUFF?!?

Let's conquer the "stuff" first...they come home with hospital wristbands, paperwork, foot prints, hearing tests, you're going to need a plan.  Each of my girls has a box in my office with their name on it.  It is a normal "bankers" box - just the cardboard kind that folds up.  Right now it is all just thrown in there since they are not old enough for it to have gotten out of control.  Going on my to do list is to organize it by year into something like this:  (and yes, I think calendar year is MUCH easier than age so all kids rotate into new folders at the same time.  Call me smart, call me lazy but call me organized!)

These are plastic, expand up to an inch and should be able to store a reasonable amount of things for a year.  And, they'll fit neatly into my box.  Of course anything that doesn't fit into these can still be marked accordingly and stuck into the box so we can still keep that first finger painting on oversized sketch paper.

Now, for the baby books and milestones.  I went on a search before Abi was born for something that would work for me.  I found this Easy Baby Memories.

The first picture is the cover of a spiral bound calendar.  Basically starting in the month the kid was born you label and number the months.  Then you use the stickers to mark important dates.  Of course you can write in what ever you want on the rest of the squares or leave them blank.  On the top is a place for a picture and height/weight each month as well as a journal prompt (What makes baby laugh, babies favorite song, sleep habits are just a few examples.)  I LOVE IT.  This I can do.

Now, this got me thinking - ok, if it is this easy for Abi, why should I stop keeping track of fun and important things for Grace.  So I went out and bought her a "planner" calendar.  It is small, has months with squares and lets me write in whatever I want.  I just need to buy some stickers to jazz it up!

Grace's on left, Abi's on right.

Of course this will work even without babies.  I have a working calendar that I use but I may get our family a "memory" calendar too just so we know what fun things we did together.  We shall see!

Hope you have a great Sunday!

Elizabeth