1.25.2008

I Have No Proof, But No, You Were Not Adopted...

I woke up this morning in a cold sweat and was unable to get back to sleep. I realized that I am a really bad mom. My children do not have photo albums displaying their milestones. I am a failure.

How did I let this happen? I take pictures of my kids. I have 3 cameras for Pete's sake. I even have 2 photo printers! But I do not have any of these photos in albums with cute paper and witty captions attached to any of them.

My children will all grow up and say "Mom? Why do you not have any scrapbooks of me growing up?" and all I will be able to say it "Sorry... I am pitiful."

When Hope came along I gave it a good try and she actually has 2 baby books and 3 photo albums, but we have nothing after the age of 3 for her. Aaron was born when she was three and I have 1 baby book for him and 1 album. You can see how my success was failing. When Emma was born, I finally filled out her baby book when she was 2 and she has a very small photo album that consists of photos from the day she was born... that is all. Poor Mary. I have a baby book for her, but I have not put anything in it since I scribbled in the date that she was born. She has no photo albums. All of her pictures are either still on a digital camera or on this here computer.

I do have shoe boxes and shoe boxes full of photos. This drives my sister-in-law crazy. She is a scrap booking expert. She even has an entire room in her house devoted to her scrap booking... and when I say that I mean that it is not only called the "scrapbook room" but she bought special organizing furniture for this room from IKEA that makes it look so-what is the word I am looking for?-ORGANIZED!

My children will have to look through Rubbermaid tubs full of old Nike shoe boxes in order to look at the memories of their lives. Not only that, but I will die and my children will say "Do you remember what mom looked like?" because there is not one stinking picture of me around this place.

I have to place part of my photo album ineptness on my mother. The woman who I asked if she had developed the photos she took at my wedding and she looked at me with a blank stare and said "I didn't take pictures at your wedding." and I said "Yes you did mom! I have a picture from someone else and you are in the background taking a picture!" My mother's reply: "Oh, I better go look for that film."

I also do not have a baby book. My brother and older sister both have baby books, and my little sister has a baby book... but I do not have one. My parents must have been too busy-whatever, that is fine. I am not bitter. Sheesh.

The worst part of this "I have to start photo albums for my children so they know that they did indeed have a good childhood!" mission is that I can't start organizing now because we are going to move in a few months and whatever I start will just get lost in the shuffle. I have to make a long-term plan for this dilemma. Is it too early to make a 2009 New Year's Resolution?

If there is anyone out there that wants to start a business where they scrapbook other people's pictures and memories, well let me know! I will pay a hefty price to get these memories put together for my children so that one day when I am old and fragile I can look through them with my grandchildren and show them how much their parents were loved. That is all I want~

16 comments:

Kasia said...

I'd wager your sister-in-law would be more than happy to attack your mountains of pictures...tell her it's (a) a work of mercy, and (b) would get one more mountain of pictures out of the world and into scrapbooks. Appeal to her hyper-organization!

That said, if she won't, ship 'em to me...I'm sure we can negotiate a price! ;-)

Entropy said...

I hate scrapbooking. I hate the cutesy captions and the whole friggin' page devoted to one picture. What a waste of space!

I also hate having our pictures tucked away in boxes especially when 3 year old pictures and 8 year old pictures of the same child get mixed together.

I buy pretty photo albums and stick them in. It keeps them mostly in order and neat and we can actually look at them.

That's as good as it gets around here so don't feel bad! Scrapbooking other peoples pictures sounds like an excellent business idea for those so inclined!

Biddy said...

i have actually made scrapbooks for other people that didn't want to do it! and i've thought about opening a business...hmmm

i have 2 suggestions (other than paying me to do it for you lol)

1.blogs. forget photo albums, BLOG it! a friend of mine uses her blog as her kids' baby books.

2. have the kids make their own. it's a great time killer and they love making something of their own. i did this with the kids i was a nanny for and it kept them busy for HOURS

Unknown said...

I'm with ya sista...that's why I blog. I figure they can't hate me too much if I document their lives here. I'm probably wrong though. They ALWAYS blame the mom:-(

Rebecca Frech said...

Upload the pictures to mypublisher.com Then order the books. They are lovely and not too expensive and you don't spend a fortune on stickers your children will peel off and put on their shirts or the walls. Seriously, we don't print out pictures anymore, just order the books. If that makes me a slacker mom, then so be it.

finicky said...

Man, I just realized how lacking we are in that category as well. It's hard to find time these days, but it's easy to say that huh?

I think one day though, I'll be with an empty nest and have time to spare. Maybe if take the pictures and videos and atleast have them thrown in a box with dates, I can go through and organize them. That already sounds too complicated. Damn microwave society!!!

Jud said...

I am not a picture taker. My wife is, though, and there are lots of pictures of the kids when they were wee ones; less so now that they are older.

I was the second of two children for my folks, and after about 6 months my baby book is largely empty, except for the occasional report card or newspaper clipping. I may add the ticket I got today from the railroad cops....maybe my kids will one day wonder the heck that was all about!

finicky said...

I am certain they would wonder about that jud. some stories are certainly worth telling. In fact they are useful as to help your kids avoid such injustices, if you will.

Anonymous said...

Cris,
When I was a teen I made up a scrapbook using the pictures I could find of myself in the many boxes of photos Grandma Mac had in the baseent. I think it was a school project. Must of been, I never would have made one otherwise. I hate scrapbooking!
When Uncle Don and I got married in 1966, he bought me a scrapbook. I said, what is this for? He said, you can make a scrapbook of our honeymoon. :) That book is still in it's box on the shelf in our closet. Like I said, I hate scrapbooking! But, it does give me a good laugh every time I dust it off!
Love,
Aunt Barbara

Anonymous said...

You said,
"If there is anyone out there that wants to start a business where they scrapbook other people's pictures and memories, well let me know! I will pay a hefty price to get these memories put together for my children."
So... what kind of hefty price are we talking about? If you are serious about this, please contact me as I am a single mom who is looking for a flexible job I can do & still stay home with my girls. You can email me at mrsautoonion at yahoo dot com. I'm actually a scrapbooking consultant. But I'd be most happy to make your scrapbooks for you!
Alis
ps. I love your blog!

momto5minnies said...

I'm just hoping that my children won't mind that after 2001 I can only hand them some CD's with our whole family of photos. Right now we are up to 12,000. I think sometimes after 2003 I stopped printing photos regularly. My girls know we have tons of photos because they pop up on our MAC while it idles.

Maura said...

I'm sixth of seven kids. For my dad's 60th birthday, we dove in to the shoe boxes of pictures and put together our version of "this is your life" in a photo album. It was really fun sorting and laughing and telling stories. And he loved it. You'd catch him watching football on Sunday with it in his lap.

Point being, if you don't get around to it, some day your kids will and they'll love it.

-Maura

Anonymous said...

Hi Cris
I love your blog! It makes me laugh everytime I read it!! Thought I'd throw another scrapbook idea your way. I have a great friend (awesome Catholic mom, and my former college roomate) who has started a company called The Perfect Page Scrapbooking. We sell handmade scrapbook pages and albums, so you can tell everyone that you spent countless hours doing the pages when really you just put the pictures you want onto our pages. I would be happy to send you a catalogue!! Take care and keep up the great mom work!!
My email is amysperfectpage@q.com.
-Amy

MKHKKH said...

Cris- I had this exact talk with my sister last week. I have made a nose dive in the baby book and photo album department. I had to do a scrapbook page for my other sister's bridal shower and well, I definitely won't be the one opening a business. I suck at it- Majorly! Anyway. Cheers. You are not alone on this one.

I must THANK YOU, THANK YOU for the laundry tip. I am enjoying laundry and eagerly awaiting the next load to fold. Its almost orgasmic to reach laundry bliss. I am sure this is a honeymoon phase, but I will ride it and just keep sniffing. LOL.

FLmom7 said...

I'm right there with you! I figure I'll wait until my kids are older (like 30) and then finish their scrapbooks...it will give me something to do when I don't have toddlers to chase or teenagers to drive around anymore. Hopefully I'll live that long. I'm sure you'll get your pictures in order someday! Obviously you're not alone. ;-)

MKHKKH said...

If you have nothing better to do, I tagged you for a blogging meme.