Capturing life’s big and little moments, 365 days a year
Tracking the children’s development on a wall calendar keeps this family laughing
Every year about this time, I buy a wall calendar. I know, I know. How old-fashioned in the age of iCal. But I don’t want to scroll through data to revisit my children’s first steps.
For that, and other rich memories of family life, I need a proper paper calendar.
I’m not the only one. Last year, the New York Times reported an average of 3.12 printed calendars in each household in 2011, down from 3.98 in 1981, but still used in the multiples. As with books, paper versions endure.
Each wall calendar is a journal of sorts for our family of five. I track hair appointments and birthday parties, yes, but also the kids’ funny comments and current obsessions.
Before I had children, I wrote everything in a Filofax. (Remember them?)
Only in 2004, the year our elder daughters were born, did I switch to a wall calendar my brother-inlaw made online from family pictures. He made another for 2005, putting Ella and Rebecca on the cover.
Each wall calendar is a journal of sorts for our family of five. I track hair appointments and birthday parties, yes, but also the kids’ funny comments and current obsessions
Who has time for filling in a baby book with twins? I used the calendar to record how the girls shuddered at yogurt in April and sang “Baa Baa Black Sheep” in November.
I went deeper with the 2006 calendar, writing monthly recaps in the margins. (That September: “Enter(ing) the ‘It’s mine’ and ‘I do it’ stages, making for some frustration all around.”) For 2007, I further broke out each child’s likes (E = Captain von Trapp) and dislikes (R = bread crusts).
By 2008, when our third daughter was born, I was tracking the linguistic, social, physical and behavioural development of three children in detail. This peaked in 2011, after which my notes became more perfunctory.
Still, every December I look for a new calendar.
I have guidelines, such as the need for large blank squares and matte paper easy to write on. Gregorian calendars are the most practical, a lesson learned from a couple of years of Jewish lunar calendars.
The calendars should have enjoyable art. I am drawn to Japanese woodblock prints, Group of Seven reproductions and film posters from the ’80s. My husband likes hedgehogs; we all like cats, hence this year’s Day of the Dead cat drawings.
Over the years, the calendars have come free from the phone company or from Costco as a “mom’s calendar” with stickers. Once, having left it too late, I was forced to make do with a yachting calendar from the remainder bin of a card store. I have zero interest in boats. Going through them is a hoot. The girls’ personalities and habits are there from the get-go. Rebecca still fires off zingers and asks for praise. Ella remains empathic and independent. Inara continues to eat three breakfasts and clown around.
Flipping through the calendars together recently, we are reminded how Inara used to love being “jailed” by her older sisters. I had forgotten the time Ella and Rebecca, aged 3, used foul language towards their dignified European grandfather. We cry with laughter.
The kids want me to return to recording their lives in greater detail. So starting with the 2018 My Toronto calendar, I shall do so. apataki@thestar.ca, @amypataki