Baby Book

There is nothing that has weighed more heavily on me or that has been so oppressively hanging over my head than B's baby book.  (Exaggeration, yes, but kind of true).  She's 2 and 1/2.  The baby book should have been finished months ago!

Well, as of last night, I am proud to announce that B's baby book is approximately 98% complete.  I say 98% because there are a couple things I still need to add, like her shoe sizes at each age (tedious, but there is a place for it and I don't want to leave it blank).  I also left two pages blank to document B's first LG vacation, but I can't find those stinkin' pictures.  But since I was sick of having my dining room table covered and eating on top of scrapbooking materials for the past 3 months, I put the page protectors on and I called it complete.  I'll add that other stuff later.  Hopefully "later" doesn't mean 2 and 1/2 years from now.

Though it has been a bit of a stressor, I have to admit that I love to do this kind of stuff.  I'm a creative person trapped with little artistic ability.  But I've always loved to be crafty - I think that's what people do when they can't draw or paint - they craft!  So, the creative outlet was GREAT!  Being creative is also a big stress reliever for me.  However, I'm just too much of a perfectionist to get this stuff done quickly, so I spend nearly an hour on each page getting it exactly right.  Several nights I vowed to finish the book and to stay up until I did - I even set the kitchen timer to keep myself on track for each page, but I couldn't be bogged down by a time limit - and so those "all-night" attempts failed - failed in that I did not finish the book and also in that I did not stay up all night.

I literally sorted through over close to 700 pictures of our first born.  Is that an obscene amount of pictures?  (Poor K will probably only have a fifth of that number of pictures!)  It was no easy task.  When I first started out (around a year ago) I meant to use every single picture - but then reality set in that that would take just WAY too long.  Not to mention I'd have a baby book that I wouldn't be able to lift.  So, once I got through all the milestones of the first month, I put together just two pages per month.

Brooke has loved looking through it.  She asked to see her baby book at least 10 times today.

So it was all worth it!  Can't wait to start the next one - but maybe I'll take a bit of a breather before I put that weight back on my shoulders...and eat a couple of meals off my table.