Minding the Unruly: Panic Attack Variation

My cousin Lynne over at Sugar City Journal has been talking about Minding the Unruly lately (I love your titles by the way Lynne -- is it really possible to get the unruly to mind? much less get me to mind them?), and looking for photo preservation ideas. I think she's been having the same panic attack I've been having -- what happens to nearly ten years of photos stashed on this one little hard drive when the baby takes a swipe at the keys (again) and the whole thing goes flying? I've taken to backing up on an alternate hard drive, printing photos one year at a time (although what to do with the boxes of those is beyond me at the moment), and uploading to flickr or picasa. But my favorite alternative so far is the Blurb book I made a few years ago for Christmas.

I am a lousy journal keeper -- we'll just get that right out in the open. Lousy, as in maybe five entries a year since the day I got married. Lousy, as in one entry per infanthood per child. I'm not proud of it; every new baby brings new resolve to dig in and chronicle their fascinating and beautiful lives. But the resolve somehow immediately dissolves in the face of sleep deprivation on my part and the need to be deeply snuggled on theirs. I'm so caught up in living this mothering life that I neglect to imprint it onto some page somewhere.

But the Funny Book I have kept religiously.

I'm not sure what it says about me that the only thing I can't help but keep track of are all the goofy and quirky things my kids say. But keep them I do -- we're now on Volume Two. The Funny Book is bedtime book of choice around here (or in the car book or over lunch book or bored kids book), which made it the obvious dialogue to accompany our photo collection. The Blurb book I made was of the year 2006 -- every spread (or two or three) a collection of photos from a different month with all the accompanying sayings. And I have to say that it cracks me up and makes me cry every time I look through it.

So thanks for the reminder Lynne, to get a move on and put together books for the other years that are jamming my iphoto and enlarging the Funny Book. What with gems like these on hand, it should be a cinch:

“Lulu,” I said, whispering in her ear, “Can you say ‘Daddy, you’re so handsome’?”

“Daddy,” she said, turning and grinning, “You have PANTS ON!”

I called for Isaac to come play a game of Mille Bourne with me, but he yelled back that he couldn’t. “Lucie is snuggling with me,” he yelled. “It’s just too big of an opportunity.”

Lucie, putting on her fancy dress and a donkey costume hat.

“Real princesses have manes, don’t they mom?”

George: “At school we had to draw a picture of what we wanted to study and I said I wanted to study blood, so I drew a picture of me holding a jar full of blood, and then a calculator thing.”

“Oh no Lucie,” I said, cutting up her pancake. “It’s all gooey inside."

“That’s ok,” she replied. “I like goo. It matches my nose – the goo in my nose – and I like that.”

George, grabbing baby Lucie by the pajama sack: “She looks quite like a little raft.”

Catherine to Isaac.

“You’re taking all my stuff and it’s BLASTING ME OFF!”