A tale of two baby journals

Harry has a baby book. It is a detailed journal, stuffed with photographs, mementoes, drawings, observations, locks of hair, hand and footprints and so on. His milestones are described in loving and intricate detail down to the very day that they were passed, days out are chronicled, everyday life and routines are commented on. The main journal we bought only covered his first year, so I started for him a second book which is an A5 sketchbook, where I got him to draw 'pictures' and I wrote about some of the things that we got up to.

Mia has a baby book too. It isn't the same one, as I did have enough foresight to realise that I probably wouldn't be spending quite as much time on it. A lot of the things that I wrote down for Harry I was writing to help me remember when it came to the second (for example, my dismay that the babies I produce do not like to sleep).

In Mia's book you will find a birth story and some brief comments on some of the early milestones. I'm pretty sure that it's not that up to date, and some of them are very vague ("well, she is certainly smiling now but I can't remember for sure when she started"). I haven't even printed out any photos yet.

To a certain extent, this blog has taken over from the baby books. It is much easier to click here to add a photo, rather than get a selection together (because it's cheaper to print out lots at once), get them printed and then stick them in. I've written quite a lot about my thoughts and feelings. One thing that I always wanted to do when I started blogging was to get it printed out (I believe that there are places that can do this) so that I would have a physical record of what I had written.

But I do need to make more of an effort with Mia's book. I hope that the children will treasure their own books one day, as I remember how much I loved looking through mine even when still I was still a child. So I hereby commit myself to making Mia's book of the baby years at least as complete as Harry's, if not quite as detailed!

If you are looking for a good baby or child journal I would fully recommend the ones in the series that we have (there are also other journals in this series available for Grandparents, pregnancy, mother and toddler and others). Harry has "My Baby's Journal" and Mia has "Baby to Five - An Early Years Journal" published by Ryland, Peters & Small.