Memories are for Keeps

Sometime during labor, when my contractions had become quite unbearable, I remember being genuinely perplexed about mothers who had multiple children. In the heat of my huffing and puffing, the thought that any human being would put themselves through childbirth more than once seemed masochistic at best. Surely the adage ‘once bitten twice shy,’ had to count for something… Maybe I really should have been chastising myself for opting to be one of those ‘annoying natural-is-best’ mothers who choose the noble road of pain, rather than the blissful mostly painless birth experience now available to womankind through the epidural. Nevertheless, experienced mothers are right when they say you forget the pain.

The truth is, while you may not actually forget the fact that it was a painful experience, you don’t really remember the specifics of the pain. The pain of childbirth, however, is probably the only thing about motherhood you really want to forget. Children grow so incredibly fast that parents spend much of parenthood, especially the first few years, finding a way to record those precious memories. From the moment you receive your adorable bundle in your arms, each milestone is recorded with relish, making ‘breaking news’ the norm in your home.

If I had any journalistic or photography skills they are now exclusively applied to recording my daughter’s journey through life. Sometimes I’m quite amused at myself and the frequency with which I update close family and friends about my daughter’s feats: her first smile, the first time she rolled over, the first time she held her head up, her first tooth, first step, first utterance of ‘Dada’ and ‘Mama’. I have literally inundated my family and close friends with our baby’s firsts. Indeed motherhood is a special journey of milestone celebrations.

Milestones are duly recognized as such cherished treasures that there’s a plethora of ideas and products out there to help you safeguard precious memories of your child. There’s the tried-and-true ‘baby book’ concept that you can use as an album of pictures and souvenirs. Baby books range from basic affordable photo albums of under $20 to fancy deluxe leather-bound record books that cost over $100. People also make hand and foot print casts as cute baby keep sakes. Then we have our DIY magician moms whose creativity puts me in awe with the cute little treasures they find time to create for their children. I personally really take to the baby book idea and I always tell myself I will eventually get around to creating a really good one for my daughter but with balancing work, motherhood, and wife-hood, finding the time to do so has been like pulling teeth.

You can imagine how grateful I was to receive the ‘Memory Can’ - a truly innovative gift from a good friend to help me record my daughter’s milestones in a quick efficient way. This container, which my friend creatively decorated, came with a sticky-note pad as pictured below:

Whenever my daughter meets a milestone, I quickly jot down a note with the date and her age and throw it in the can. This way, I have been able to record all her amazing feats thus far without spending hours putting a baby book together, or worse, missing out on recording those special moments because I can never find the time. This can could eventually help me create a baby book, if I do finally find the time, but I believe that even as a standalone safeguard of memories, it is pretty awesome. I can’t wait to read through the collection of memories with my daughter one day to show her how far she’s come!