Travel comes in phases in our lives. In high school, it was that first “semi-chaperoned” spring break trip with friends (Hi, Andy’s mom!). In college, it was the semester abroad. Of course, you can’t forget the tropical honeymoon. Now, it’s the family trip out West that appears to be the next rite of passage. It’s the Great American road trip, complete with wet wipes and fruit snacks. Everything but Walley World.
Everyone I know seems to be pointing their Suburbans west and heading out to show their kids the national parks of our great nation, not to mention kitschy treasures along the way (Spam Museum, anyone?). We hopped on the bandwagon, or maybe I should say caravan, since we literally almost ran into hometown folks along our path. I guess our kids are all just of a certain road-trip eligible age. Either that, or we are all just equally crazy.
We are not as ambitious as some families we know. I mean, my kids are not about to do a 10-mile hike. For that matter, neither is my husband. One hour on horseback almost put his knees out of commission.
So we seek balance.
We take an ATV tour of the Black Hills, followed by s’mores and DT.
We let the kids sleep in until we nearly miss breakfast, then we hand them a shovel and a bucket for some gold prospecting in a creek.
We camp in the woods, but with a bathroom in our glorious glamping tent.
Of course, the kids preferred the aerial ropes course and feeding baby bears over actually getting out in nature. Anything designed to give me a heart attack was generally their jam on this trip.
Yes, that’s my baby girl up there.
Really, though, they loved it all. This road trip was so outside the realm of our typical beach vacation that it forged family connections we never would have achieved at home. And even though the kids often protested when we ushered them out of the car at one of our adventures, they never wanted to leave whatever destination they had so reluctantly graced with their presence in the first place.
Would I do it again? Absolutely. I have already added Glacier and the Grand Canyon to my family travel bucket list. Heck, maybe a drive through Canada or Alaska is in the cards. After all, I have always loved a road trip. (Though our most recent trip was not quite like my post-college trip. This time, at least, we had GPS to bail us out when we made a wrong turn, or when we were just looking for a Jimmy John’s. And let me tell you, GPS and Jimmy John’s are both gratitude-worthy.)
On this trip, I was grateful for many other things, too. Patience. Dramamine. Beautiful vistas.
The lack of wifi and cell coverage. Safety harnesses.
Bison sightings. Headphones. Not driving off a cliff on Needles Highway.
Most of all, I am thankful for a week out of our element, making memories and expanding horizons.
I think it’s time we had a talk. I feel like things between us have changed, and not for the better. We used to hang out all the time. We would get together between classes in college, sometimes hang out on Sunday afternoons. We spent every night together.
But, lately, it hasn’t been so easy between us. I miss the old days. I wish we could spend more time together. I kind of feel like you have been avoiding me. We never get together in the middle of the day, just for fun. I can never track you down in the middle of the night.
I think maybe my constant worrying and overactive mind are driving a wedge between us. And I understand that. I do.
To make up for that, I have started purchasing things to try to entice you to show up, or to stick around longer. I find myself trying to buy your company. In fact, I have spent a small fortune on products to encourage your presence. But it hasn’t made much of a difference, really. You still desert me for the night as soon as my 7-year-old has a bad dream.
I even thought if I worked out it might help, might make you come around. So I tried taking better care of myself. I got exercise, drank water, did all the things they say to do. But that didn’t bring you around either.
So, Sleep, you tell me, what is it going to take to get you to show up and stay the night? Just tell me, and I’ll do it.
I’m tired.
With love and longing and just a tiny amount of desperation,
I know a lot of dads. You probably do, too. Funny dads, quiet dads, strict dads, indulgent dads, one dad, two dad, red dad, blue dad. Mostly, I know good dads, which is something to be grateful for.
But, seeing as we are coming up on Father’s Day weekend, I want to talk to you a little bit about my dad. The one who bounced me on his knee when I was a baby, albeit while chanting a little ditty about burying a dead horse. (Why do we sing such horrifying songs to our children? I mean, “Ring Around the Rosie”? Even “Rockabye Baby.” There’s nothing like a soothing lullabye about a baby falling from a tree.)
He is the one who gave me his nose and his sense of humor. I love him anyway.
He is the dad who was able to keep my hair in presentable pigtails when my mom was working, because tackling a 6-year-old’s locks isn’t much different than grooming the ponies he grew up riding. Apparently.
He is the one who took me ice skating and out for donuts. The one who taught me to play tennis. The one who rubbed my head when I was sick, just like I do for my kids now.
He is the one who got up to work before dawn on Saturday mornings, so he could be home from the office when I woke and not miss spending time with me (i.e., dragging me on endless errands to the hardware store). The one who made countless other sacrifices of which I am not even aware. Because that’s just what dads do.
He is the dad who let me miss a day of middle school to go mushroom hunting with him. The tradeoff was that I was supposed to write a story about the experience and share it with him. And he is the one who is still waiting for that story. Sorry, Dad.
He is the one who taught me to drive in an empty parking lot. (Well, he tried. Just like he had tried to teach my mom to drive stick, also in an empty parking lot…with 5-year-old me rolling around in the back of the truck. Why, yes, I am a child of the 80s. Why do you ask?)
He is the one who wouldn’t allow me to “car date” until I was 16. In retrospect, this was probably one of his smarter parental moves…even if it made him significantly less cool in my teenage eyes.
But he eventually recovered some of his coolness factor, and he is the one who became one of my favorite travel buddies. He drove across the country to fetch me and all my thrift-store belongings after a failed experiment in West Coast living during my early 20s. He even made the drive home a fun experience. We blasted the Eagles in Winslow, Arizona, and we ate at one of those ridiculous steak restaurants in Texas where you can have the giant steak for free if you manage to ingest it all without puking. So, you know, the perfect road trip.
He is the one who taught me that one should never travel farther away from the desired destination, even if it looks like a step in the right direction. (For instance, if your flight to Orlando is cancelled, don’t fly to Denver to catch a connecting flight back south, even if the airline assures you it is the best option. Just sit tight at the bar in the Atlanta airport and hold out for a direct flight.)
He is the one who caught up with me and my friends when we were backpacking Europe and gave us a respite from youth hostels. He put us up in an actual hotel. With flags in front of the building! (Flags were always a key indicator that accommodations were too swanky for our budgets when we were wandering Europe.)
He is the one who managed to keep me centered on my wedding day. I will never forget him gently directing me to take deep breaths before walking me down the aisle.
These days, he is the one who takes my kids to a waterpark, by choice, and goes on all the rides. Then he is the one who can’t move for 6 days.
He has been my caretaker, enforcer, and sometimes partner in crime. He has always made me believe I could do anything. He has made me feel loved and protected all my life.
And I’m a lot like him – at least that’s what my mom always said whenever I exasperated her during my growing-up years.
Hey, Jessica. Yeah, you – the one without the stretch marks and crow’s feet. You are in for one wild ride.
First off, you don’t know what tired is. That’s good. You don’t need to know…yet. So sleep late and long and often and without apology. Sleep will become hard to come by soon enough. Don’t worry, you will sleep again after becoming a mama. (Not for as long nor nearly as well as when you had no small humans to tend, but you will sleep.)
You don’t know what love is yet, either. You think you love your friends, your family, your husband, do ya? Well, just wait. Once you become a mom, you will love those babies in a whole different and more powerful way than you love anyone right now. Come to think of it, you will also come to love your hubby in a whole different and more powerful way than you do now.
Speaking of your hubby, go on dates with him as much as possible. Travel together as much as you can. Create a whole bunch of lovely memories that you can use to remind yourself of how much you love each other when it’s 2 am and the baby is crying again and you would just as soon punch your spouse in the face as get up to change another diaper.
Fear not, dear one, this parenting thing gets sooo much easier. You may even think you have it all figured out when your toddler crawls up on your lap and whispers: “I wuv you, mumma.” You will realize you were dead wrong and you are actually a clueless fool as soon as you take said toddler on an airplane. Then you’ll think you have it figured out again when you manage a tantrum-free Target run. Spoiler alert: You won’t have it figured out. You never will. But you are still the best person for this job. Just listen to your instincts.
Also, it’s okay to ask for help. When in doubt, just call your mom. But please don’t call the pediatrician when you accidentally nip your daughter’s finger while trimming her teeny baby nails and she starts to bleed and you freak out like the rookie mom you are. It’ll be okay. Really. Really really.
When making your weekly “to do” list, make sure to include snuggling. I know you. Heck, I am you. You love to get things done and cross them off your list. So you better put snuggling on there, because it is the most important thing you can possibly do.
Except for buying baby wipes. It’s very important to buy wipes. Then buy some more. Trust me.
If you don’t lay down the law right away, your son won’t sleep in his own bed until he’s a teenager…and that’s okay.
Yes, it’s normal – whatever “it” may be. It’s normal to breastfeed. It’s normal to not. It’s normal to co-sleep, and it’s normal to let them cry it out. It’s normal to potty train at 18 months, just like it’s normal to potty train at 3 years old. It’s normal to put your cell phone in the freezer and then search for it frantically for 36 minutes. Even several times a day. It’s even normal if it feels like your heart is straining to break out of your chest, just to be closer to these little beings it loves so much. It’s all normal.
Everyone will give you lots of unsolicited advice. As a general rule, ignore them. They aren’t you/me. But everyone will also tell you that it goes too fast, that these kids grow up in the blink of an eye. On that, everyone is right. Damn them.
Your kids will go from this…
to this…
in 2 seconds flat. I shudder to think what changes the next 2 seconds will bring. All I can tell you, and me, is to enjoy the ride.
Why is May trying to kill us? I keep hearing folks discussing this Maycember phenomenon, so I know it’s not just me. May is out of its mind. May is drunk and needs to go home. The field trips and end-of-the-year projects alone are enough to make your head spin. Then add in the sports and activities that are starting, not to mention the extracurriculars that are wrapping up, all with lots of paperwork and fanfare and DETAILS. Oh, the details.
I don’t know if I’m coming or going, but I’m probably late either way. And I definitely forgot the napkins I signed up to bring along. It’s a lot of work to have fun these days (or, more accurately, to help your kids have fun), even if you don’t volunteer to be the coach or team parent (spoiler alert: I did not), even if you’re not a teacher. Hats off to all those folks, though. They deserve allllll the hats. Along with whatever other accessories you happen to be wearing.
But fear not, brave parents! There is a bright side to May. We get to be outside again! Finally. And the outdoors has a lot to offer in May. Mama and Papa geese shepherding their fuzzy babies into the water…
…a carpet of purple flowers at the park (yes, they will probably be mowed down shortly by some well-meaning groundskeeper, but they are gorgeous for now)…
…even just the sky. Just look up, folks.
I especially love to see scenes like these while I’m out on a run, because it means I have to stop running in order to capture the picture. And it’s justified. I mean, the serious runners zipping by in their fancy gear can’t look askance at a person pausing to record the beauty of nature on their iPhone. Can they?
May also means we get to be out on the water again. I don’t know if I can explain how much I love floating on the lake and seeing the Winneconne water tower in the distance. Even if I’m holding my husband’s fishing net while doing so.
May is when we get to raise the baby chicks.
It’s when we get to do messy outdoor projects, like tie dye.
May is when we harvest our first crop from the garden.
And we get to take selfies on the dock with our littles. 🙂
This week, I am grateful for two things that have allowed me to spend some quality time with my kids. Coincidentally, both of these things start with the letter “F.” (And no, I’m not talking about any swear words here, or “cursies,” as my friend Kristin calls them.)
1. fuboTV
We cut the cable cord years ago. We just didn’t have much time to watch TV, so when we moved, it seemed like a good time to try to live without cable. For a little while. It was just a test, an experiment, at least in my mind.
I thought we failed the test miserably and should crawl back to cable about 6 months into our self-imposed exile, but dear hubby disagreed. I’m not sure if it was the monthly bill, the extended commitment, installation, or just the concept that rankled him most. But he stood firm against cable. Sigh.
Seeing as we had Netflix and Amazon Prime and a relatively reliable antenna, we weren’t exactly suffering over here. We could watch Packers games, as long as the wind was blowing right. And there is more content online than one could stream in eleven lifetimes. I think the biggest adjustment back in the day was watching more PBS Kids and less Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. First world problems, for sure.
But the Milwaukee Brewers didn’t cooperate with our plan. Hours of research and failed attempts via various online platforms over the years still didn’t connect us with our Brewers. This was a problem we could live with, at least until this year, when our 9-year-old son suddenly knew all the players and all their stats. (How he managed this without access to a televised game is beyond me.) So I dove into researching our options again and came up with fuboTV. And I have to say, I’m a fan. It is super easy to use, didn’t require any installation or contract, and it bought me time on the couch with my son.
Yes, we are still watching a screen. But at least it’s better than a YouTube video. He’ll get excited and grab my arm when Aguilar hits a home run. I think he hugged me last week Yelich came on the field. And I’m even getting into the games. (I’m pretty sure I like the impulsive cuddles more than the baseball, but either way.)
2. Fearless Faith by Melanie Shankle
Let me first say that I am absolutely not qualified to speak to you about religion, and so I’m not about to do so here. But I am a huge Melanie Shankle fan. Her bio says she “loves writing, shopping at Target, checking to see what’s on sale at Anthropologie, and trying to find the lighter side in every situation.” So she is basically my best friend. Or she would be, if she ever met me. I’ve read all of her books, and I suggest you do the same.
Needless to say, I was thrilled when the Easter Bunny slipped Melanie’s Fearless Faith: 100 Devotions for Girls into Ryan’s Easter basket. Since then, Ryan has asked to read it every single night. And I can always say yes, even when bedtime has been an hour-long debacle, because each entry is only about one page long. Sometimes Ryan reads that day’s devotion aloud, and sometimes she asks me to read it to her. And then she grasps her pen in her 7-year-old hand and completes the accompanying journal entry. Prompts so far have included: “What scares you? How can you be fearless instead of afraid?” and “Instead of comparing yourself to someone else, list five things you like most about yourself.” Be still, my mama heart.
I thought she might not be quite ready for the book, as it is suggested for ages 9 and up. But if you have met Ryan, you know that was pure silliness on my part. Her answers have been both thoughtful and delightful. And they have given us a few moments of shared contemplation before bed.
So there you go. One app and one devotional. Both fantastic. Thank you, letter “F.”
Did you know that 20 people could co-exist in one house for an entire week, 99% peacefully? Yeah, my hopes weren’t very high, either. But we did. It was a week of making memories in a beautiful house in a beautiful location with beautiful folks. Old friends, new friends, some related by blood or marriage, some just framily. And it left me overflowing with gratitude.
First, I am thankful-ish that our two goldfish survived yet another thoughtless week-long abandonment. Yes, Logan and Gracie are still with us. Bless.
Next, I am super grateful that I chose a room on the top floor of our gorgeous accommodations, so even though I mostly sat my butt next to our private pool for a week straight, I still got my steps in. (Only because my scattered “mom brain” forced me to trek up to my room at least 16 times daily for forgotten sunglasses, towels, etc.) Another plus for that third-floor room is that my friends on the lower floors reported that the rest of us sounded like a herd of elephants overhead every morning while they were trying to sleep it off. Sorry, guys.
I am thankful that the weather cooperated with us. We were all a tad worried about the forecast, but we enjoyed a gracious sun, and 70 degrees somehow managed to feel more like 80 all week. This is probably because our bodies had grown used to negative 12 over the ridiculous Wisconsin winter. Whatever. I’ll take it.
I am so grateful for my friends. Specifically, my friends’ hands. You know, those hands that brush your daughter’s hair or make sandwiches for your kids or bring you a(nother) beer or help you hang streamers for your daughter’s birthday after she goes to bed or beat you at cribbage or, last but certainly not least, make freaking delicious guacamole.
I am also grateful for my friends’ hearts. Those hearts that allowed everyone to get along in close quarters (Okay, to be honest, our quarters really weren’t that tight. But still.). No judgment, no snark, no drama, only the friendliest of peer pressure centering mostly around blender drinks. This laissez-faire atmosphere allowed me to fight through the anxiety I felt all week and enjoy the vacation. Huh? Anxiety? Yep, and I don’t even know where it came from. I mean, I once backpacked Europe without a backpack, and I drove around the entire continental U.S. with a road atlas and a 9-pound “guard dog.” You would think I could handle a cushy trip to Florida for spring break. And I can. But, dang, there were moments. Chest-crushing moments. I don’t know if it’s being a mom, or just getting older, or maybe something else. In any event, I am thankful for the folks who helped me push past it last week, even if they didn’t know it.
I am particularly thankful for God-winks. Those whispers from above that come in various forms, but all lead you in a particular direction. Usually just the direction you need to head. This week, as I sat by the pool, a song came on that is so entwined in my head with my old friend Bernie that I had to call her right that second. I hadn’t seen her in over year, but I was literally compelled to climb up to the third floor yet again (sigh) the instant the song ended to retrieve my phone. Now, I don’t call Bernie very often, even though I love her dearly. In fact, it turned out, her number hadn’t transferred in my contacts when I got a new phone a few months ago, and I hadn’t even noticed. No problem. I just pulled those digits right out of the very thin air in my aforementioned mom brain and called her up, even though I probably hadn’t dialed her number from memory since college. I was slightly deflated to get her voicemail, but I left her a message. Imagine my surprise when scrolling Facebook the next morning to learn she had delivered her healthy and gorgeous baby girl roughly 12 hours after my call, almost 2 weeks early. Not that I knew her due date when I called her. I just knew I had to call her. Just wow.
Sometimes God, or the universe, or whoever, gives you just what you need. Leads you where you need to go. Sometimes things just work out beautifully. The sun shines and the drinks flow and the kids only punch each other a couple of times. And sometimes things don’t turn out quite so perfectly. Or so we think. But maybe even the wrong turns and obstacles are there to shape you or make you appreciate the good things even more.
The world lost an amazing person while we were on vacation. Our friend lost his sweet, beautiful mother after her long battle with cancer. But I shouldn’t say lost. Even though she wasn’t there with us, she was. She still is. And she will continue to be with everyone who loved her, a gentle reminder to choose the right path and soak up the sunshine.
I am woefully behind at, well, life right now. I think 2019 may be out to get us. Not in a tragic, earth-shattering way, but just with normal, everyday STUFF. Sinus infections that keep kids out of school for weeks on end. Snow. That. Won’t. Freaking. Stop. It all adds up to one big excuse – for the pile of laundry, the stack of unopened mail, the exercise plan gone awry, the Christmas decorations I still haven’t packed away. And can you say “dishes”? Or don’t. It’s better not to talk about them.
So how do we make it through? I’ve boiled it down to four things that help me get by when I just can’t.
1. Ask For Help
I am very good at accepting help, but I’m not so great at asking for it. I think a lot of us fall into this category. So if your mom shows up on your porch with a homemade dinner, you usher her right in, but you would never call her up and ask her to please make you some chicken enchilada casserole.
Or maybe you don’t have built-in help. Maybe your family lives across the country. Maybe your parents are wimps, err, I mean snowbirds, like mine. Maybe you don’t have any handy-dandy “mom friends” with whom you can trade childcare. There are other options.
Just recently, my little village offered a candlelight snowshoe hike, coupled with FREE CHILDCARE for hikers’ kiddos. Say what?!?! I couldn’t participate (see: sick kids, above), but I appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.
If your community is not as awesome as mine, maybe your grocery store is. I am a longtime Festival Foods fan. Festival makes me not mind grocery shopping – except during the week before Thanksgiving, when people go crazy and it’s best to avoid humanity entirely. And now Festival is even better, because they are offering this nifty service called Click N Go.
Festival even has a sense of humor.
I had been thinking about trying online grocery shopping for awhile, but I hadn’t pulled the trigger (or, more aptly, clicked the mouse), mostly because I really do like grocery shopping. I know it’s a time-suck, but I find it sort of…relaxing. Call me crazy. Still, I had a host of other reasons not to give it a try. I was afraid my personal shopper wouldn’t pick out the highest quality produce. I didn’t want to be the one left with the bruised Honeycrisps. Or what if he selected fully ripe bananas when I wanted green ones? Heaven forbid. Beyond that, I figured it would be kind of a pain to register and find my grocery items online.
Turns out, I was wrong. Click N Go was easy to set up. There is currently no app associated with the service, so you just visit www.festfoods.com/clickngo. When my order was ready for pick-up (way ahead of schedule), I received an email notification. I rolled up into the parking lot, and a friendly gentleman pushed a cartload of groceries out to my car. As he helped me load the bags, he smiled and asked if there was anything else Festival could do to make my experience better. Umm, really, no. Unless you want to make me a chicken casserole.
2. Use Shortcuts
There are lots of life hacks out there. For instance, you might buy 12 pairs of the same sock, because I think we can all agree that pairing socks sucks. Who wants to spend your evening finding the sock with the gold toe vs. the one with the red stripe? Or maybe you like to brush your teeth in the shower to save time. Maybe you’re an avid meal prepper. You do you.
Personally, my favorite shortcut is simply donning my winter hat. Hats are even better than dry shampoo when it comes to cutting down on hairstyling time. I love anything that allows me to sleep in for an extra half hour. And I especially love my Love Your Melon hats. Yes, they are a little ubiquitous these days. Kinda like that one song that’s on the radio every time you turn it on. But 50% of their profits still go to the fight against pediatric cancer. These guys make you feel good about not washing your hair! Bonus: Love Your Melon even sells baseball hats, which is super useful for the 6 days each year in Wisconsin when it’s too warm for a stocking hat.
3. Write It Down
I love notes and lists. To-do lists, grocery lists, goal lists (both short- and long-term) – give me all the lists. Post-Its and planners are my BFFs. The stationary aisle is my mecca. Come to think of it, this blog post is even a list. If you aren’t a list maker, well, I could give you a list of reasons why you should become one.
When your head is spinning because you are out of ketchup and your husband needs vitamins and you have to pick up your son’s inhaler and drop off a check because the kids’ lunch account is empty. Again. (Where does that money even go? I swear, I must have bore 10 children I haven’t met who are eating off that lunch account.) When you sit up in bed at 3 am because you just remembered you are responsible for snack day tomorrow. These are the times you need to make lists.
If I can get my middle-of-the-night checklists out of my head and down onto paper, I know they won’t evaporate into the ever-present fog in my mom brain. Then I can usually, sometimes (okay, every once in a great while), get back to sleep. So keep a notebook by your bed, or just write yourself notes in your phone. But write it all down and prioritize it. Give it a 1, 2, or 3. “1” would mean this really needs to get done tomorrow, “2” represents those things that you should do. The “3s” are just laughing at you.
4. Let It Go
You know that list you just made? Get your head around the fact that half of it won’t get done, at least not this week. Maybe not this year. Or even next.
Learn to embrace the madness. If you can’t do that, learn to contain it and then ignore it. Shut the door. Not the front door – the laundry room door. I promise you, that laundry will not grow legs and walk away.
One of our favorite moments from yesterday's Masters Agility Championship Preliminaries, Winky the Bichon Frise! #WKCDogShowpic.twitter.com/p55IxGC5iH
Then take a breath and watch this video of Winky the Bichon Frise, strolling through the Westminster agility course. This dog has life figured out. Instead of racing to the finish line, Winky sets his own pace and pauses to enjoy the view…or maybe to soak up the applause. Either way, good for him. As he saunters up that ramp with joyful nonchalance, he seems to be reminding all of us that life is about the journey, and not the destination. This is fortunate for Winky, because his final time was a whopping 192 seconds, including 92 faults. First place went to another dog, who scored somewhere around 30 seconds. Guess what, though – I couldn’t tell you that other dog’s name.
Bottom line – You don’t have to be in first place to win at life. Maybe it’s not even about winning. Maybe it’s about putting a hat on your head and asking a stranger to fetch your groceries. And, most importantly, enjoying the view.
Okay, I admit, I read books mostly via electronic devices these days. And, by electronic devices, I mean my phone. It’s just so convenient to have a book with you, even when you don’t have a book with you. (You know what I mean.)
But I still prefer “real” books. In fact, I just ventured to the bookstore and bought four hardcovers to lug on spring break. And I was reminded all over again how much I LOVE bookstores.
Bookstores are great places to visit old friends.
And new friends.
Book friends are the best kind of friends, because you don’t even have to talk to them.
Magic resides in bookstores. Look at all those adventures crammed onto shelves, all those stories just waiting for us readers to bring them to life.
And that smell. Oh, how I wish they made a perfume called “bookstore.”
We all have a happy place. When I was a kid, you could give me a room full of books, and maybe a box a JELL-O Pudding Pops, and I was set. In fact, come to think of it, not much has changed. Except I have to make my own pudding pops now.
A few weekends ago, I was cleaning out my daughter’s closet. (I know – how exciting. But please read on anyway.)
In a Rubbermaid bin, under a pile of ancient art projects, I found her baby book. I picked up the book, bracing myself for a flood of memories and emotions. Her first steps, her first footprints, her first words. I gently opened it. And..the book was empty. That’s right, Mom of the Year, right here. Cue the applause.
In all fairness, she is my second child. It’s pretty amazing I bought a baby book for her at all. I mean, I certainly didn’t sterilize her binkies every time they hit the floor. I certainly didn’t make people sanitize their hands before they could come in the same room as her. I most certainly didn’t use a wipe warmer for her baby wipes. In any event, she is too old for me to start a baby book now. She will be 7 years old in a few months, and though there are many milestones yet before us, I am simply not going to record the flavor of her first solid food at this point. (Was it sweet potato? Peas? We’ll never know.)
The way I look at, traditional baby books set you up to fail. I mean, forget to write down one doctor’s visit, and you might as well throw in the towel, because you will have to deal with a glaring blank page staring at you, with “Baby’s 6-month Checkup” written accusingly across the top. And, when you are keeping a little person alive, not to mention laundering the clothes they just spit up all over – again – you don’t have time for that nonsense. I’m not a total slacker, though. I use three super-flexible and forgiving tools to memorialize our kiddos’ growing-up years. They are perfect because they can be started at any time and, other than the third tool, you can use them as much or as little as you like (or remember!).
1. When Ryan was born, I bought a blank journal and dedicated it to her. My intent was to write a line or two every few days to capture whatever cute things she said or did, or just to tell her how much I love her. I also bought a journal to dedicate to my son at the same time, even though he was already 2 1/2 years old. (Whatever. I wrote some words in his actual baby book, so he’s not totally deprived.)
Almost 7 years later, I still have those journals. I keep them on the bookcase in my office and pull them out from time to time to record my thoughts on big moments, such as the first day of kindergarten, or little moments, like subjecting the dog to a game of dress-up, but mostly to express my love for my kiddos. I don’t write in the journals every week, or even every month. That’s the loveliest thing about these journals – there are no parameters. I write what I want, when I want. But I have made enough entries that they form a sort of verbal scrapbook of their lives, a series of love notes and observations interspersed with well-meaning parental advice.
My intent is to give each child their respective journal on some momentous occasion down the road – a graduation, wedding, birthday, etc. I haven’t nailed down the particulars, probably because I don’t want to think about my babies getting that old. But my hope is that the journals will serve as a kind of cozy blanket in their adult years. Something to remind them that their mama loved them and was paying attention to them when they were growing up.
2. The second thing we do is to record our children’s measurements on wooden oars. When I was growing up, my parents periodically marked my height on the basement wall. This worked out great. Until we moved.
I don’t expect to ever move again, at least until Dan and I can’t manage our own Metamucil and heart meds. But I still like the idea of the kids’ recorded measurements forming a mobile keepsake. You can find all sorts of cute wooden growth charts to use for the same purpose on Etsy, but I like the simplicity of our medium. We also live on the water, so it’s a little more apropos, I guess. But I think the paddle is a cute idea regardless of where you live.
Actually, we just measured the kids this week. For the first time in 13 months. Oops. See – it’s all about the flexibility, folks.
3. The third thing we implemented are the birthday binders. The kids love these, which is great, because that means they usually remind me when it’s time to get them out!
Sometime during their birthday month, we ask the birthday boy or girl 20 questions about their favorite things (friend, food, game, etc.). The questions are the same every year, and it’s fun to see how the answers evolve.
We started a binder for each child on their third birthday, because it seemed as they would be able to give us mostly non-jibberish answers by then. But the binders could be started on any birthday, really.
We don’t do any prompting, and we record their answers exactly as they are given, so previous assorted answers have included “haki dogs” and the “bunka song.” (And because we also include a photo from each year, I can easily picture 4-year-old Baylor exclaiming that he wants to be a “mower guy” when he grows up.)
After the birthday kid answers the questions, we read through their responses from all the previous years as a family. This is everyone’s favorite part. The kids love seeing that their favorite book was once “Road Work Ahead,” or that blue was always their favorite color. And it just makes them feel special. The key is to not let them go through the old answers until they have already completed this year’s set of questions, though, so as not to be influenced by the past!
I really like the binders, if only because, when the kids are 15 and not speaking to us, the binders will help us remember that those same children once proudly claimed Mom and Dad as their BFF.
So, maybe we failed when it came to the baby book. Maybe I can’t tell you what Ryan ate for her first real meal. But, I just randomly opened Ryan’s journal, and I can now tell you that Ryan once called zucchini bread “bikini bread.” And that feels like a win.
