NOT EDITED! SORRY! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK! Six years ago (I feel like I should be starting out "Four Score and...) I decided to mimic my sister's hobby of scrapbooking. The art of scrapbooking is one that you should do if you are interested in creatively chronicling (<--word or unword?) events. I am not much of a fan of capturing events because it's the memory or unimportant moments that I could just swim in without even pedaling. Like right now, Libby is running from her frustrated Daddy after her bathtime reciting her Kindermusik CD to try to make him laugh. She is saying in a European accent (that which is the same of the narrator on the CD), "Here's the sound of an adult parrot....." She also loves to put her hands in his hair and just mess it up and run away as he says in a low voice, "Liiiibby." How do you capture that in a scraptbook? You don't. The only way you capture that moment, and moments like that, you know those that seem rather insignificant, but are absolutely delicious, is by just stopping and getting every second of it with your ears, heart, eyes and emotion! So, back to my short stint with scrapbooking. My sweet sister, trying to encourage a mutual hobby, gave me everything I would need to scrapbook. I scrapbooked mine and Steven's lives with all the Creative Memories Stickers one could imagine, put the fancy cut trims on and closed the book in like a few hours. Scrapbooking didn't work for me. It was proabably the cheesed up Olan Mills posed shots I tried to use. Maybe the magic, well the magic of scrapbooking has to be in the skill/talent of the photographer. The pictures have to get that feeling or that moment just right so that when you look at it you have memories as describable as Taylor Swift's song, "Best Day Ever". No matter what time of month, I CRY. LIKE. A. BABY. when I listen to that song. So, scrapbooking--I just wasn't feelin' it! That's the type of person I am, once I lose heart in something, I not only don't want to be in it, I don't even want to remember or think about it. I just want to close the book and take in things I love, things that are delicious, things that capture the essence of your mind moving quickly down a path you once trampled. I just think about things much later when I have time and wonder what all the details were. Maybe a picture would help! I just start mulling around the concept of remembering life at 33, life with a 5 year old, life when you still prepared her food and got to show her things for the first time--simple things like moving clouds, how to work the blinds or the names of characters from her favorite cartoons. How will I ever capture how it sounded when her little feet would run down the hall so fast that you just held tight thinking, "she's going to crash or fall" and then two seconds later she was in the playroom, fine, using her fake cartoon voice with her toys and all was well.....How will I remember that? A scrapbook wouldn't get it. It's just everyday. It's just everyday, right now, but soon, it will be faded past. I don't have time to write, though I still manage to have time to think. It's an ironic thing, really. For example, Libby started school last week--we think. On the twentieth day, we have to decide if "big school" or Kindergarten is ready for her! I word that honestly as I know intellectually she is fine, but maturity wise--who knows? We'll see on the 20th day. Will we remember this dilemma, so big now, but soon to be a small and faded part of the past everyday trivialness (<--unword, I know). We celebrated her 5th birthday on August 17th. We tried to do everything in the world to make her feel special. I think we did that for many reasons, most of which center around the fact that she is old enough to interact with us. Will we remember those interactions as she grows up sooooo fast? Maybe a scrapbook would be a good "Memory Lane", it seems like I am wanting to put velvet ropes around memory lane! Hmmm....
