(Not) Remembering the details

I’ve realized that, despite being the kind of hoarder mom that saves sample newborn diapers (for what? So I can whip it out of a box to show Collin one day? “Look what your butt could have once squeezed into!”), I have not kept a baby book. What? Why?

Isn’t that what every mom is supposed to do? Isn’t that breaking some sort of Mom Law?

Collin's baby book consists of a box in the closet, labeled “Collin’s Stuff,” where everything Collin-related gets shoved and forgotten. Until that magical “one day” where I’ll have time to do something with dusty baby shower cards. It saddens me to think that I never recorded any of his milestones in a book for him to read one day, especially now that he has hit the mac daddy of baby milestones and (shhhh) he’s walking.

Yes, it’s true. While Husband and I lay in a heap on the floor, Collin toddles all around us, picking up socks to put in Husband’s mouth. If you want to see the happiest baby in the world, take him for a walk down the street, holding only one of his little hands. Let him stop and whack the flowers. Let him flap his free arm and squeal in delight as he stomps his moccasin-clad foot in the neighbor’s manicured yard. If you want to see the saddest baby in the world, pick him up and take him inside. Although, it occurred to me after I came home from work last night to see him zipping around the living room, that he really isn’t a baby anymore. He’s a toddler. My baby is a toddler. Suddenly, I’m asking the same bewildered question I had asked when I first found out I was pregnant, “How did this happen?” (Well, OK, we know how… )

I know baby books are supposed to be the place you highlight your child’s accomplishments, but I feel like I do that all day long, every day, to everyone who talks to me. I am obnoxious, I’m sure. I’m likely to answer, “How are you?” with, “Oh, Collin is doing great!” I’m sure, if I were to keep a baby book, it would be the star spangled banner of baby books. It would never contain segments of actual day-to-day life, such as:

“Today I watched cat hair drift across the floor while I wondered if the poopy smell was coming from the litter box or the diaper.”

Or:

“Today I managed to cook and prepare rice with one hand while holding Collin in the other, only to have him stare right at me while he rapidly stuck his tongue in and out so said rice would avalanche all over the place.”

If you guessed that both those things happened today, you would be right. I suppose this blog would be my version of Collin's baby book. Or my Facebook page, which should just be renamed Collinbook. In the end, I guess it doesn't matter so much if Collin won't be able to look back and know the exact nanosecond he sat up for the first time. He will be able to look back and know how much he was loved, cherished, adored. He'll know he was my best friend, my confidant, my play mate, and my boss. He was, and always will be, my world.