When my son was born, I received a beautiful baby memorabilia book as a gift. I loved the beautiful green silk cover and the thick paper pages with sweet inspirational titles. I had a clearly defined vision of future lovely afternoons spent filling it up with bits of hair, pictures, doctor slips and cute quotes. Initially, the vision included my son playing in the background but as time went by, I reordered it as an activity I will do when he goes off to college. Recently, though, I consciously retired this vision entirely.
I will never complete a baby memorabilia book for my son. There, I said it!
I enjoy crafting, so the project itself was really not that far off the mark. However, my vision was not born out of a personal desire for a crafting project, but rather because it was part of an image I had in my head of what makes a good mother. It was something I felt I should do for my son, not something I actually wanted to do. Here I feel the need to highlight that I have saved all the memorabilia and so although it might take some digging to establish what my son weighed at his nine month checkup, we would be able to figure it out.
It was not an easy decision to quit this project. I love memories, at least the good ones I have since suppressed most of the bad, and the baby memorabilia book does seem a good way to honor them. Initially, I tied my decision to my busy schedule but bottom line is this; I only have one child. So instead of typing right now for example, I could be gluing. Yes, I absolutely could be, but I like writing this more and I have come to the conclusion that I make a better mother when I am happy. When I do less of what I should and more of what I want. I spend plenty of time gluing as it is.
I still have that baby memorabilia book and I have contemplated what to do with it. For a while I thought about passing it on, finding someone who would put it to good use but I did not. I could not let it go and so I have decided I will offer it to my son. I will show him all the collected baby memorabilia and see if perhaps he would like to make his own book, learning about his life as a baby. I can tell the stories, he can collate and together we can retrieve information needed to fill any gaps. And if he declines... well then I will only be thankful that I did not spend my time working on it to begin with.
"Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them"
- Bob Dylan
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