Remember When

I purchased a scrapbook before my son was born to chronicle his first year. It includes sonogram photos, pictures of my pregnant belly, and snapshots of the baby shower along with the usual first bath, first food, Christmas, and learning to walk keepsakes and pictures. He is now two and a half years old and I haven’t quite gotten to his first birthday party yet. My daughter is nine months old and her scrapbook hasn’t seen so much as a sticker.

Part of the trouble is that after I collect all of the supplies (markers, stickers, stencils, photos, memorabilia, etc.) I have to take them downstairs to the dining room table. That means there will be little hands groping around in search of items left too close to the edge of the table to smear with sticky peanut buttery fingers or use to make art on the walls with.

In my experience it is unsafe to attempt most craft projects without the aid of talking vegetables or cars to keep the children entertained. Even with creativity-leeching entertainment, it will only be a matter of minutes before someone needs a diaper change/potty break or a snack; or they just simply want to be involved with the fun new thing that is going on at the table.

Today, after much organizing and searching for misplaced pictures, I managed to complete one whole page and pre-plan another. It took an hour to choose a piece of colored paper, arrange three pictures, stencil captions in brown archival ink and decide where to put a sticker of Winnie-the-Pooh clutching a walking stick. No wonder I’m not finished yet.

I really am determined to complete it before my son’s third birthday in September. Maybe by the time I’m ready to buckle down and start his little sister’s scrapbook he will be old enough to play co-designer. If I continue at the current rate, my daughter will be four by the time her book is finished. After we have more children I’ll most likely resign myself to the fact that Baby’s First Year scrapbooks will be done in time to be presented as high school graduation gifts.