Those were the days
Recently four of us were in a truck, heading to a meeting in the Valley for the high school hockey league.
One of the guys in the truck is going to become a dad before the season is over. He and his wife are expecting in December. With three other parents in the vehicle – myself with two kids, another mom with two kids and a dad with three kids, we had plenty of advice to offer.
I’m not sure if it was all useful advice for the immediate future. For about half an hour the discussion involved university and college and financing (although it’s never too early to plan ahead).
But we also talked about nurs- eries, baby names, birth and delivery, baby books, and other things.
About baby books, I kind of wonder if a lot of people have stuck with this tradition?
When my sister and I were younger, Lisa would always complain about her baby book because it wasn’t as packed with information as mine was. Mom might have said something about it being because we were living in Stephenville, Newfoundland where I was born. Back in those days there was no Facebook to chronicle our family life for family and friends living far away so she made sure my baby book was up-to-date and filled with information, whereas when my sister was born we were living in Yarmouth close to everyone.
Or maybe it’s just because I was the first born, the favourite child, yada, yada, yada.
In any event, I swore that when I had kids they would get equal billing as far as their baby books were concerned. Of course, that’s not how it ended up. Jacob’s baby book is filled to the brim with information and all of his ‘firsts’ whereas if Justin pulls out his book he might be wondering if he even had teeth as a child because that, along with a lot of other sections of his book, are blank.
Now I understand looking back at the baby books – the ones my mom kept and the ones I have – that life as a mom was busy, particularly when the second child came along, and so there wasn’t as much time to sit and write things down.
I’m sure I probably thought to myself more often than not, “I’ll write about that later.”
Hmmm…would 16 years down the road still classify as “later?”
Someday, especially since it’s on my mind now, I’m going to pull out those baby books and take a read through them. And depending on how good my memory is, maybe I’ll even fill in a few blanks.
In the meantime, now I’m reminded about things my kids did because of social media. Facebook has this great ‘On this day’ feature where it reminds you of things that happened years ago based on statuses you posted. I get a good chuckle out of these when they pop in my memories, like these three that came up over the past week.
From 2010: After Justin asked me his sixth question about where fruit flies come from, I said, “Stop asking me questions,” to which Jacob says, “That’s what you do all the time. How was school today? Did you have lunch? Who did you hang out with? How were soccer tryouts? What did you talk about on the bus? ... Okay, I had to admit, coming from him it sounded funny.
From 2012 came this one: Note to Justin: When you come walking towards me with this look of disgust on your face while you are holding a plate of nacho chips and you say to me, “These are disgusting. They taste like poop. They make me want to barf. Try one. Go ahead, try one,” …. There really is no need for a taste test on my part. I’m prepared to take your word for it.
And from 2013, one of my alltime favourites:
Conversation with Jacob on the way to dropping him off at his high school dance.
Me: “Do you need money?” Him: “Well, it costs $7 to get in.” Me: “How much money do you have?”
Him: “35 cents.”
Maybe when I read through my baby books after I get through the sections about first steps, first teeth and first words, I should look for a section entitled: lasting humour.