I feel like did a pretty good job of documenting my son’s first year and a little beyond that. By “pretty good” I mean that I filled in everything in his baby book until he started walking and then proceeded to plaster it with sticky notes of the pictures and milestones I wanted to add. So, yes, my son’s baby book is about 11 pages and a stack of about 300 sticky notes (but they are the colorful ones). And my daughter? Ha! Are you kidding? I think there are maybe four entries in my maternity book with a bunch of ultrasound pictures shoved into it. I don’t really know if I even bought a book for her. I’ve had numerous ideas about keeping a journal with notes to my kids or filling in the quote book someone gave me as a gift. And I start them, but it’s usually just an introductory couple of posts (usually an apology for not handling a particular moment as well as I should have, and how I really do love them more than they can know).
If you are able to keep up with documenting your child’s life, I’m envious and happy for you. No, really: You are awesome. I still, however, think you’ll like this service I found: Qeepsake. Maybe most of you already know about it, but it was new to me, and I think it’s a great parent resource. Just to be clear I receive absolutely nothing from the service for telling you about this. I tried, but the founders didn’t get back to me in time, and I couldn’t wait to share it! You can try it for free! It's such fun and solves one of my major sources of “Parent Guilt”. Here’s how it works:
The reason I like this service so much is because I receive these short text messages with simple questions that I can respond to immediately and quickly. Some of the questions I’ve answered so far are:
Q. What is Milly particularly good at right now?
A. Milly is especially good at dancing and whining. She is a phenomenal snuggler and excels at wasting food. She is also really great at scaring the heck out of people with her accident proneness.
Q. How does Andrew show you love?
A. Andrew shows love with hugs and kisses and “I love you Mommy” delivered randomly and frequently. I’ll be in the kitchen and he’ll be downstairs playing. He’ll run up the stairs, hug me, drop and “I love you” and then disappear back down to resume playing. The first couple times I went down to see what he had broken, but I now know that he really just needed to give and get some loves.
I just thought someone might have the same struggles with documenting the precious, hilarious, tear-jerking, and sometimes painful moments, so there ya go!
If you have a service or app that has made parenting just a little easier, please share it!
If you are able to keep up with documenting your child’s life, I’m envious and happy for you. No, really: You are awesome. I still, however, think you’ll like this service I found: Qeepsake. Maybe most of you already know about it, but it was new to me, and I think it’s a great parent resource. Just to be clear I receive absolutely nothing from the service for telling you about this. I tried, but the founders didn’t get back to me in time, and I couldn’t wait to share it! You can try it for free! It's such fun and solves one of my major sources of “Parent Guilt”. Here’s how it works:
- Download the free app or sign up on their website at https://www.qeepsake.co/.
- You’ll begin receiving one question a day about your kids.
- Respond to the message with as short or long of a text as you want, or you can respond to them on the website and app.
- You can add pictures via the website or app, or you can upgrade to be able to text a picture.
- You can skip entries or go back and edit entries later.
- Print hard/soft cover journals as frequently as you like.
The reason I like this service so much is because I receive these short text messages with simple questions that I can respond to immediately and quickly. Some of the questions I’ve answered so far are:
Q. What is Milly particularly good at right now?
A. Milly is especially good at dancing and whining. She is a phenomenal snuggler and excels at wasting food. She is also really great at scaring the heck out of people with her accident proneness.
Q. How does Andrew show you love?
A. Andrew shows love with hugs and kisses and “I love you Mommy” delivered randomly and frequently. I’ll be in the kitchen and he’ll be downstairs playing. He’ll run up the stairs, hug me, drop and “I love you” and then disappear back down to resume playing. The first couple times I went down to see what he had broken, but I now know that he really just needed to give and get some loves.
I just thought someone might have the same struggles with documenting the precious, hilarious, tear-jerking, and sometimes painful moments, so there ya go!
If you have a service or app that has made parenting just a little easier, please share it!