What I'm about to say is going to sound a whole lot like justification or perhaps even judgmental. I hate scrapbooking and don't understand it. I gave it a go after my first child. I was on a very fixed income and had no money for such supplies. I made due with recycling all the card I received for the baby shower. I think I even splurged on some traditional supplies. The result? It looks like crapola. At the time I was pretty proud of my frugal go at being artistic, but in all honesty it is horrible. I cringe every time I look at the books I made for Emma and Jared. The books also only go to about 1 year of age for both of them. That was all the energy I felt I could expend on such an artistic failure.
The next go at "scrapbooking" was to actually put all the photos I had - because that was back in the day when you actually got them printed out - and placed them in photo albums and then I would write-with my hand and a pen- a short description next to the photos. This was better and making me feel less guilty that I now had 2 more children and not even a book that was about their first year.
My main beef with scrapbooks is this....It's all about your fancy shmancy page and not about what is actually on that page. The first thing you see when you look at a page is the decorated page and then your eye finally finds the 1 or 2 pictures on that enormously huge bedazzled piece of paper. I know, I know - it's all digital now. Now I can have no artistic value on a computer instead of a binder. I'm sure it's fabulous. Here's the deal. I care about what is in the photos - not what is decorating them. I take way too many pictures to try and caption all of them. Actually now that I think of it - it's probably why I started this blog. I could caption a bunch of pictures at once and tell a more complete story behind them - that sounds good- I like it- we'll go with that!
Now, what about all the art projects the kids bring home, the school photos, the stories and poems the've written. How about the favorite blanket that is now only shreds. What about the dress that was worn practically every day of Emma's life from the ages of 2-4? They need a place to go. What did I do? Got them each a bin and threw all the crap.....eer, I mean memories in them. Easy peasy lemon squeezy and now I'm not a crummy mom for not saving all that stuff. What about all those photos that were printed off before the days of just leaving them on your computer forever? Yep, you guessed it - threw them in there too. They are little boxes of awesomeness.
I'm not sure what gave the kids the idea to go out to the back garage where these bins are stored and cart them in and dump them all over my bedroom floor, but they did. It was a really fun Sunday night activity. The 2 older kids had hard evidence that I loved them once too just as much as the 2 youngest and I got to be sad by seeing how much they've grown. The 2 older ones had poems about how much they loved Mom and Dad and I got to reminisce those days when my kids loved me - jk I did tease them about that though - it's a mothers job - it's in the job description.
What was the most fun about the night is seeing them bond over shared experiences. All the "remember this" conversations. The amount of time we have left for these precious experiences before they are grown and gone are rapidly coming to a close as they will soon start leaving the nest. Have I done enough? Will they be prepared? What kind of adults are these little beauties going to turn into? I don't think my heart is prepared.
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