When I was pregnant with my first son I got the most adorable baby book for him at my shower. Unfortunately, I was terrible at remembering to fill it out!
I really did try to remember to add in the dates of all his “firsts” but I could never quite keep up. It got so that every time I saw the baby book I would cringe and feel massively guilty that I was failing as a mother because Jackson would never know the exact date and time of his first jar of peaches. Then one day Dave brought home a gift bag from some event and inside of it was an empty journal. While I’m not good a the whole baby book thing, I do love to write and I realized I could keep a journal for Jackson as a sort of alternative baby book. With a journal I decided I wouldn’t have guilt about when I wrote in it… after all, if I give this to him when he’s an adult I doubt he’ll care if there are nine months between entries because he’ll have a lifetime full of them.
With each new son I have gone out and purchased a new journal. I keep them on my nightstand and I write whenever something big happens in their life or in the world. I try not to write in them all on the same day (because then I worry I’ll say the same thing to each) but I usually talk about how old they are and what they’re like at this age. I’ve also included big world events and what my perspective was on each. I hope it gives them a neat perspective on my own life as well as theirs.
One of the things they’ll learn about me through these alternative baby books? I’m a terrible speller! But I try and keep each entry honest and conversational and sometimes that means I make a mistake. I’d rather they read notes from the “real” me than my attempt at the perfect version.
