My baby doesn't have a baby book

There, I've said it.

I think I do a lot of things right as a mom, but I've totally TOTALLY failed on this front.  I have blank baby books (two or three of them!) but none that have anything in them.

I feel terrible about this.  My own baby book is a treasured posession.  I love reading my mom's notes about what gifts people brought me as a newborn, and each of my firsts.  I love the lock of hair she saved (almost the same color as my daughter's!).  I love my mom's tiny tiny neat handwriting, which has changed so much over the length of my life.  I love looking at my old report cards and school pictures.  

It isn't that I haven't marked down any memories or milestones; I have.  I also have stacks of important saved items, like the impossibly small hospital anklet with "Baby Girl Bumgarner" printed on it, the extra copy of her first passport photo, and a large stack of cards from her first birthday. I also have thousands of photos on my computer and almost-monthly letters that I wrote to her during the first year, and a digital calendar where I took note of all sorts of firsts. 

But none of this stuff is in a book.

I don't know, maybe it doesn't need to be.  There are so many ways of capturing memories these days.  I think part of what's holding me back from starting an actual baby book is just not knowing what to put in and what to leave out.  Do I print out all of my Facebook status updates from the first several months of her life?  How do I wittle down the thousands of photos to one for each month?  How do I include the letters, or do I want to keep those separate until she is older? What about all the precious videos of her from my iPhone? Should I include a DVD?

I'd love to hear from some of you other busy mamas.  Do you have baby books for your babies?  What form do they take?  Do they have digital as well as physical components?

And those of you with older kids, what did you do?  How do your kids feel about their books, or the lack thereof, as the case may be?

Comments

[Julie F in St. Louis, MO]

You're not the only one whose day can be ruined if she stops to think about this failure. Only mine is not about a baby book. My kids were 7 and 8 when adopted from Russia. All the adoption books talked about making adoption books from the first form you fill out all the way through their first year at home and beyond. But the experience was too overwhelming. I still want to organize my photos (pre-digital), but my kids were there, they know what happened. It is what it is, I say. I have enough greater failings as a parent to beat myself up over that one.

[Lindsey Royal Anderson]

It wasn't my intention to keep up with Willie's baby book, it just happened, like a journal (I have far too many journals to admit here), and we got a sweet bright pink journal just after Willa was born and it fit. So I wrote our birth story first, just to get it down. Next I put a few pictures (a few of the hundreds upon hundreds) and left pages for a few more. In this technological age, no doubt Willa will have the chance to see the thousands of photos we took, if she so desires later. Then anything cool, any story I wanted to remember, any first I wrote in the book when I remembered, about every few months a new entry went in. I also asked Cody to do the same (there are two or three from him). I included some special notes from grandparents and aunt and uncle. I included some really funny daily logs when I was documenting everything she did in order to time her peeing and pooping, she even pooped a bit on the book once.

I have envelopes in the book (glued in backwards) so I can include special things without gluing them in. I keep it simple and have no attachments to the book or the commitment and thus it comes about effortlessly. If I'm too busy, I find something else to include versus writing. If I have lots of time, I type a letter to her about what is going on in our lives.

I think it's about what feels good. I have two baby books from my childhood, one that my mom made when I was a baby. I love that one. But there is one she made when I was graduating high school that I actually love more. She was older and so was I, it actually includes my whole life up to that point, which was special. Both my parents wrote heartfelt letters and the book is really treasured.

I think it's most about staying in the moment with your baby, too, which you're good at doing. So, I think Bean will love whatever memories you capture of her childhood.