This is a different kind of “Sunday Stroll” today, because, as many of you know, we’re eagerly awaiting and preparing for the arrival of our daughter’s first baby, due in March. With the preparations for the baby shower for Abbie last weekend, I found myself becoming even more reflective of our daughter’s own birth, one very special March day almost 29 years ago.
I wanted to share some of those memories with Abbie, as she becomes a mother herself. It’s been somewhat of a tradition in our family, on each child’s birthday, to haul out his/her babybook and to relive the story of the birth and early years for that individual child. Actually on the morning of the shower (as I was finished cooking and wrapping presents), I found myself looking through Abbie’s babybook once again. I knew I had to give it to her, along with a new, blank babybook I had purchased for her own new baby.
I wanted to help Abbie preserve those same kind of memories for her own child.
Through watery eyes, I remembered the tiny anklet Abbie wore in the hospital, and I remembered how I studied every feature on her, making sure they were forever inscribed in my memory. As a nervous, new Mom, I wanted to be sure I knew her every detail and I kept her with me in the hospital room all the time, so that I could nurse her on demand. Upon the rare occasion that the nurses took her to weigh her, or whatever, I again checked every detail, including this tiny anklet, to be sure my own precious child was returned to me. (Probably, already a little neurotic, huh?)
I thumbed through pages of memories of birthday parties, which always followed a theme showing Abbie’s love at the moment . . . and the cake reflected the same . . . “Miss Piggy” of Sesame Street for her second birthday, a “Barbie” doll cake for her third birthday. (Actually, I can remember making THREE Barbie doll cakes that year: one for the family party, one for her playgroup, and I’m not quite sure what the last one was for!)
Writing has always been very important to me and I’m sure I spent hours, recording every detail. In her babybook, I included the usual: clippings from the first hair cut and an ultrasound picture, as well as notes from the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.
As guests at the shower passed Abbie’s babybook around to share in these memories, several remarked about the detail, saying they couldn’t believe how much I had written. I must admit that our third child’s babybook may lack some of the intense written detail (sorry, Nathaniel!), but the dear memories remain.
I can remember the hours I spent, just holding each baby in the early weeks and months after birth, marveling at every, perfect little detail: the tiny fingers and toes, the wispy hair, the delicate rolls near the wrists, and the perfect, new baby scent! I took the time to just breathe in all of this newness, having no idea of how our lives would be irrevocably and wonderfully changed! I wish the same for our dear daughter, Abbie, as she begins the wonderful journey of motherhood—the gift of time with your new baby.
I hope that she finds her new baby book a helpful and wonderful way to record these precious memories. If you know her, you know that she loves to write as well, as is evident in both of her blogs, Farmer’s Daughter and Our Country Baby. She is a quite talented writer and I learn something new from her every day.
This morning, I started recording in my own new babybook, called “Grandmother and Me.” I hope to start making new memories with our new grandson soon and I look forward to recording some of these in this special book, which is one that grandmothers and grandchildren can write together!
Thanks for stopping by today. If you have any advice you’d like to offer an aspiring “grandmother-to-be,” I’m all ears!
And, if you’d like to continue strolling on this Sunday, please click on over to the Quiet Country House.
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Musings of an everyday woman . . . 
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