Taking Care of Memories

Everybody always says it goes by so quickly. As children we heard our own parents say it about us, and once you become a parent, everybody reminds you constantly that your baby is becoming older by the minute. "It goes by so fast..." people say. "In the blink of an eye..." "They grow up so quickly..."

I swear that when I come home from a day at work, my four month old baby girl is a little bit bigger than she was when I left in the morning. It’s almost magical. I never thought I would say this, because before Baby L. I just wasn’t much of a baby-person, but I wish she could stay a little tiny baby forever!

Since I can’t slow her down, I do the next best thing. I save everything – from her hospital bracelets, to her first onesie, to her special “My First Thanksgiving” socks. Anything that was a “first” or a favorite gets saved… at least for now, anyway. Eventually I’ll narrow it down to the things that seem most important.

Whenever I come home from one of L.'s doctor’s appointments I dig out her baby book and get everything all caught up. I figure this is as good a routine as any since she gets weighed and measured at the doctor’s, so I can fill in all the latest details while everything is fresh on my mind.

There are a million things that I don’t want to forget when Baby L. gets older, and the baby book doesn’t have spots for everything, so I also keep track of all of L.’s firsts on a baby calendar that my mother-in-law gave us as a shower gift. The calendar came with little stickers for the big events, like Baby’s First Smile and Baby’s First Laugh, and I just write the rest of them in by hand. It’s so cute that I gave one to my friends, A.S. & J.W., when they were expecting their daughter!

On top of the baby book and calendar, nearly every moment of L.'s first few months is captured either in photographs or on video. On Snapfish I even made one of those cool photo albums that come in hardcover, bound like real published books.

Not only that, but I also ordered a baby-safe ink pad so that we could make our own handprints and footprints. I had to hold Lily down and grab her slippery little hands as best I could to try to get a print of each one for the baby book. There are smudges everywhere, but we did it…. eventually.

I’ve become addicted to keepsakes, in the hopes that the more keepsakes we save, the more I’ll remember later on. I smooshed Lily’s hand into a special baby-safe plaster mold to make a handprint ornament. Her little hand print fit right in with the bunch of “Baby’s First Christmas” ornaments that we received as gifts, and the personalized pillow from one of Lily’s aunties. Not to mention the special baby picture frames, the digital photo slideshows set to music that I’ve created, the handmade sweaters that people have knitted for her, this very blog… and the list of keepsakes and artifacts goes on.

I can't help feeling a little tight in the throat when I think about my little baby getting bigger and bigger. Since I can’t keep her from growing, at least I can keep some of her things, just for the sake of... well... just keeping.

I guess that’s why they call them keepsakes.