Don’t Sweat That Unfinished Baby Book

Recently, on one of my thrift shop adventures. I noticed a vintage pink satin baby book resting in a bin of books. I picked it up, admiring the beautiful hand-painted daisies on the cover.  It was less than $1.oo.  Why not, I thought, tossing it in my cart.  When I arrived home, I began to flip through the pages, mesmerized by the pretty illustrations.  The parents of this baby had filled in many things, including her name, date of birth, weight, first visitors, and even pinned a lock of her hair on one page.  Many of the pages, however, were blank.

I had baby books for all three of my boys.  Like many parents, I expected to meticulously record every detail of anything remotely important.  I would be able to look back someday and note every minute detail in my babies’ lives.  But like most parents, that just doesn’t happen.  You are too busy changing diapers, doing laundry, cleaning up food splattered high chairs and spending actual time bonding with your baby.

According to Jessica Feeder in Today’s Parent, although she and her husband had been determined to carefully document every detail of their baby’s growth, they eventually resorted to snapping iPhone pictures instead and the baby book became lost.  She states, “I later found it beneath a pile of old, forgotten underwear, when my daughter was more than a year old.”  While she had taped in a lock of her daughter’s hair and her hospital bracelet, “absent was any mention of first foods, first tooth or her first giggle”.

Nowadays, in the age of the digital universe, I imagine these old-fashioned baby books will soon become obsolete.  Baby milestones will only be captured on phones and laptops, or shared on social media.  And while that’s convenient, somehow, I think many of us who did keep these baby books will treasure them even more.  Even if we didn’t ever fill out every single milestone.

Thank you for visiting my blog.  You may also like How to Save Money with a Clothesline and Nine Best Fresh Herbs To Use In Your Kitchen. Wishing you peace, love, happiness, and beautiful vistas!