Preserving that moment
By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Chronicling the stuff of childhood, a fleeting time of parents, is what making scrapbooks and keeping memory books is all about. |
Last week, the Wahiawa mother of two — Lindsey, 7, and Geoffrey, 12 — took her children to visit their grandfather, who's at the beginning of his fight with Alzheimer's.
"It's heart-wrenching," she said from her father's home in North Carolina. "He looked at one picture of his mom and dad, and he was blank for a few minutes."
Knowing how fleeting memory is, Ashton takes her children's baby books seriously.
The baby books — called "memory books" by some, scrapbooks by others — are filled with the stories, personal histories and mementos of each child, from their hospital ID bracelets to the lock of hair from their first haircut.
"The kids love looking at them," said Ashton, who was a Baby Hui group leader and now serves on the board, "because the story is all about them. Even at age 12, (Geoffrey) doesn't think it's dorky."
Despite having even more to do and less time to do it than ever before, today's busy parents still hanker to cobble together the scraps of paraphernalia that will last beyond their little darling's infancy.
Parallel that with a scrapbook-making craze continuing to blaze its way from a cottage industry to a $350 million industry in five years, and you'll see how baby books have grown up.
"Parents' desire to capture their children's fleeting childhood is probably the No. 1 reason people begin a scrapbook," begins the "Sunrise, Sunset" chapter of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Scrapbooking" (Alpha Books, $16.95).
Even with all the impetus to create a baby book, only Ashton's oldest has a completed one. As much as "busy mother" is a redundancy, the sheer amount of memorabilia multiplies as children grow.
Ask Ashton how many boxes of unmounted baby photos she has, and she laughs.
"I don't know," she replied after a moment's thought. "They probably each have about four."
Hawai'i Pacific University professor Catherine Sustana, mother of 8-month-old Marie Louise Noel Chorpita, knows the feeling.
She, too, laughed when asked about baby books.
"I have a bag that I shove things in," she said.
What's in it?
A few things from the baby shower, the one pacifier with Santa Claus on it — "that's the only pacifier she'd take for the first three months of her life" — as well as the feather butterfly that came in a flower arrangement from her year-old cousin with a dozen fuchsia roses, saying "Girls Rule." Oh, and every card everyone ever sent.
For baby Marie, a child of the new millennium, there are more pixels than pictures.
"We tried to enter the digital age," said Sustana, who admits that Marie's Web site is woefully out of date: "We've got a lot of angry relatives on the Mainland."
Lani Moody, owner of Scrapbook Clubhouse at Pearl Kai Shopping Center, teaches classes on creating baby books, so she hears interesting stories. There are some standard items for the baby books, as well as some unusual items.
How unusual? Well, some people even save the umbilical cord.
More important than the items are the stories behind them, she said.
"We encourage people to journal in their (baby) books, not just write (the captions), but write the stories behind the pictures," Moody said.
That's something she wishes her parents had done: "I'm the third child, so there's not very many pictures of me. I'm lucky if I can scrounge up a few."
In an e-mail from her family vacation, Joanna Campbell Slan, a mainland author and columnist with the periodical "Scrapbook Storytelling," said she kept copies of her son Michael's "first public appearance" (his sonogram), notes from friends, photos and cards and comments from the baby shower, and most importantly, the information from his bris, or circumcision, ceremony.
"During a bris, it is customary to pass the baby around, because holding the baby is good luck," she e-mailed Monday from Germany. "I wrote to my son a note about each person who was attending the bris and why that person was significant in our lives and his. We even included people who were gone from this earth, but whose memory would help guide us in raising our son. Whenever I see this document, I am overwhelmed by the hopes each family has for each new member ...
"I believe memory books teach us to live in the moment, to savor what happens as it happens, and to plan for good times, while giving us the chance to relive our lives in the best of all ways over and over ...
"When our children are young, we are dumbstruck with the wonder of them," Slan continued. "I remember taking my son outdoors for his first walk and saying, 'Michael, this is a tree. This is grass. This is a petunia.' With each introduction came a thrill. This was the world and I, too, was new to it. As our children grow, they and we become jaundiced. The secret to living a joyful life, I believe, is to never get over the wonder of it. It is a series of miracles so profound that we can scarcely absorb it, so too often we turn away from the sheer joy and amazement of it.
"It would be wonderful to record a daily note or weekly note about our child's progress."
And Ashton had these spare words of wisdom to impart: "Never mind the dust bunnies, just go have fun with your kids."
Reach Mary Kaye Ritz at mritz@honoluluadvertiser.com.
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Baby-book musts
- Memorabilia from baby shower
- Hospital ID bracelet
- Lock of hair from first haircut
- Footprints and handprints
- Photos with grandparents, parents, neighbors and siblings
- Other embellishments
- Voice record of the baby's cry
- Baby T-shirt or bonnet
- First teeth
- Well-wishes from the doctor/staff who delivered the baby
- Mint-condition coins from birth year; newspapers of the day
- Scan/photo of blanket/crib set
- Pressed flowers from arrangements, flattened Mylar balloons
- Ultrasound pictures (make color copies of these, because the thermal paper will deteriorate)
- Congratulatory cards
- For the parent as well as child
- Letters to the children, to be opened on their 21st birthday
- Pictures of the parents on delivery day — preferably before heading to the hospital
- A picture of all the gear in the diaper bag
- Pictures of all stages of pregnancy
Other tips, from scrapbook maven Joanna Campbell Slan
- Note the baby's physical traits and habits, and how they compare with those of other family members.
- Describe preparations for the arrival.
- Describe the bad times as well as the good.
- Tell about meeting other family members.
- Record the games you play.
- Note embarrassing moments.
- Notice the reaction of others.
- Preserve the paper trail.
"In my baby book, my mother saved the hospital bill from my birth," she notes. "What a hoot it is to compare that bill to the bill we had for our son. She also saved two telegrams congratulating her on my birth. ... Not only have the times changed, but certainly so has the technology."
• • •
What kinds of baby books can I buy?
If you don't want to build your own baby book from scratch, some commercial ones include:
"My Baby Album" (Key Porter, $2.99): Fill-in-the-blank section for family tree, health record, notable firsts.
"Winnie the Pooh's Baby Book" (Dutton, $15.99): Same as above, but adds some A.A. Milne stories, a growth chart, a tooth chart, and a place for "baby's favorites" and funny stories.
"My First Five Years: A Record of Early Childhood," with photos by Anne Geddes (Photogenique Publishers, $21.95): Gorgeously photographed. Milestones through age 5; place for messages from parents, friends and family; a place to write why the baby's name was chosen; spot for birthday party memories. Also comes in a multi-cultural version, with photos of babies of color.
"My Really Cool Baby Book," Todd Parr (Little, Brown, $14.95): Geared as a read-along for the child. The fill-in-the-box items include: "Whose Eyes Do I Have?" and a place for a picture of the baby crying. This charming book includes stickers and a growth chart.
"The Miracle of Life: Baby's First Year" (Tyndale, $19): A Christian-oriented journal, includes first goods what's that?, a nighttime journal, "Plans and Prayers for the Future," Bible verse and a calendar.
Related books:
"Grandmother's Memories: Family Stories and Keepsakes for My Grandchild," by Elizabeth Loonan (Friedman/Fairfax, $9.98) and "Grandmother Remembers: A Written Heirloom for My Grandchild," by Judith Levy (Stewart, Tabori and Chang, $17.95): For the grandparent to record the family stories.
"My Thoughts of Love: A Parent's Keepsake Journal," Anne Geddes (Cedco, $17.95): A place for parents to record their thoughts, with beautiful photos.
There are also several pregnancy journals for mothers-to-be.
