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Hey Baby Girl,
Soooo… I had a bad day yesterday. I’ve been trying to improve your scrapbook – new look, new location, new organization. Great idea, except somehow I managed to lose all the pictures from every post I’ve made since you were born. Poof! Sixty-four posts to be exact. I have no idea how many photos that actually is. I won’t get into exactly what happened. Bottom line is. I have all the text from all your scrapbook posts, and I have all the images *somewhere.* But I now have to go back and find and re-insert them all. It’s a huge, huge task. One that I spent quite a few minutes crying over yesterday. I love this scrapbook, how it lets me relive your big moments.
It never crossed my mind that I wouldn’t do *whatever* I have to to fix it. It’s going to take a while, but I guess I’ll just try to do a post or two per day. Maybe in a couple of months, we’ll be caught up to present again.
In the meantime, it’s reminded me how important this project is to me. I’ve found new inspiration. This is not something I want to give up. It’s important to me, and to you. I want you to have this to come back and look at and read. But I don’t want to stop recording your new milestones because I’m busy retrieving your old ones. I want this to be a book (or series of books) that sit on your shelf, that get flipped through, that maybe even your children will look at someday.
So, I’m just going to keep plugging on, recording new tidbits and recovering old photos until things are where they should be once again. And it’s also been a reminder and a confirmation that I need to be careful where I spend my time. This project is worthy of effort, and I may need to give up some other hobbies in order to maintain it the way that I want to. I’ve missed recording far too much of the last 6 months of your life.
Time to go back and fill in some of the holes. Hundreds of thousands of photos is overwhelming, but I have to be more diligent about sharing at least some of them with you. And I want to start writing more. A lot of times I hold back because the task of finding and editing the photos to put in the scrapbook overwhelms me. I think losing the photos temporarily has reminded me that the words are just as important as the photos…
Here are some of the photos I’ve missed. Usually I’ve shared them somewhere else, on flickr or facebook or on my business website. But this is going to be the permanent record. So, here are some of my favorite photos from the first half of 2011 that didn’t make it into a Scrapbook post and why I like ’em… 🙂
Your first trip to the Morongo Valley Park with me and Mima. You rode the spinny thing, teeter-tottered with me, enjoyed the swing for the first time, and picked your first dandelions.
One of the very first pictures you colored with Daddy’s help when you were about 14 months old.
Signing “water” at the mall at 14 months. All that shopping made you thirsty!
Saying goodbye to Daddy at the airport when he left for tradeshow at the end of February.
One of my favorite photos of the two of us together – a self-portrait taken while we were waiting for Daddy to come home from trade show in February.
This and one other My Little Pony are the first toys I’m sure you role played with. She was running on the chairs at the airport while we waited.
Your sweet unedited face at about 15 and a half months. It’s hard to capture your eye color. This is as close to reality as it gets. We’ve have gotten miles of use out of 4 of these dollar store hats in various colors.
Usually in the mornings we get happy face, but not always. I’d say it’s a 90/10 split. 🙂
Just a couple cute photos I entered into some photo contests, one entitled “Princess for a Day” and the other “Furry Friends” (the cupcake started out as cookie monster, but I didn’t get the photo taken fast enough, hehe). Photos like these are the reason I’ve had to go back and fill in holes in your scrapbook. There are only so many hours in the day. I’m cutting back on other things so that I can spend more time putting photos and words in here.
One of the first – or maybe the first – time we put you on the jungle gym. You were so brave and walked yourself very carefully across the wobbly bridge. You love going to the park, so much that you’re starting to cry when it’s time to leave.
We can make an event out of anything. Daddy had a Dr’s appointment in downtown Palm Springs at the hospital. Me and you hung out for almost 2 hours running around outside and in, making strangers smile.
And here you are with little Charley, trying to be gentle (not so much) and looking like a movie star.
This is your absolute favorite dress up outfit. You went through about a 2 month phase where you put it on (with a little help from us, at your request) multiple times every day.
I’m in love with this footsie foursome. I’m so glad I handed the camera to Daddy one day when I was “eatin’ your tooters.” hehe Awwww, my silly baby.Last month (June) I suddenly realized that I’m beginning to need to put a little more effort into challenging you and entertaining you. One example of the types of new activities I use to keep that little brain working. I showed you how to blow through a straw and gave you cotton balls and cheerios to blow across the coffee table. It didn’t keep you entertained for long, but it worked for a few minutes and it got the wheels turning.