Journaling Your Life
Ever since I became a mother, I made a commitment to write things down. Big things, little things, and seemingly insignificant things. I made the commitment to create and maintain a journal for myself and my child. To be clear, I am not a writer. I enjoy photography and scrapbooking more than writing down my thoughts. Yet, I felt like taking a photo or video and placing it in a scrapbook or a digital picture frame wouldn’t be enough for me to clearly remember some precious moments. So, I decided to start a journal.
When I bought my first journal, I had no idea where to start. I was three weeks postpartum, sleep deprived, hormonal, and insanely busy with my tiny human and recovery. I started carving out a few minutes here and there to just write the first thoughts that came to my mind. Most of it was trying to process birth, being a new mom, and trying to learn the needs of my son. As I kept writing, it became easier and easier to think of things to write down and to enjoy the time I gave myself to reflect, reminisce, look at photos, and write down what I could remember and how I felt about it.
I am so happy and proud that I did journal consistently when my son was born and over the past two years while he has grown. Now, I include my journaling time as a part of my self-care time. I do this by planning out each week with my husband every Sunday night to make sure we know each other’s priorities as well as who needs time out of the house to exercise, see friends or family, and/or just have some “me time.” Every week, I ask for “me time” to get out of the house, go to my favorite coffee shop, and write. I look forward to this every week and appreciate how supportive my husband is to me.
I now have incredibly treasured moments, written in my own hand-writing, that capture simple and precious memories. I will continue to prioritize journaling and writing down the special experiences of being a mother. As my son has turned 2-years-old, he has made the transition from baby to toddler. My son is a toddler now. We have arrived in a new season of life and I am so excited about it but I am also grieving the baby I had. Gone are his little coos and in their place is a talking little boy. Gone are most of his contact naps and in their place are a little boy who wants to nap by himself with his favorite stuffed animal. Gone are the crawling and first step milestones and in their place are balance bikes, swimming, and scraped knees from running so fast.
You know what else is gone? DIAPERS! My son is now potty trained and we have ditched the diapers – no pull ups either. Gone is that diaper bag and in its place is a little boy who pees in the potty just like a man. This transition has been difficult at times and I also believe this is my most favorite age so far. My son is amazing, he has so much personality, and is learning something new every day (sometimes every minute). When I need to look back and “see” my infant son, I read my journal. Those little tears form in my eyes as I remember what he was doing this time last year and reading about his growth is a precious treasure for me.
If you are thinking about writing a journal, I highly recommend it. Here are some ideas and examples of things I write about:
Special nicknames for my child during that season of babyhood. Looking back at these, some of them I completely forgot about and others we still call him today. My favorite is calling my son Squishy which we have called him Squish, Squishy, and Squishman ever since he was born. Although he is anything but Squishy, he is a very solid kid with a linebacker’s build… we just love SQUISHING him! Right now, my son is 26 months old, is 36.5 inches tall, and weighs 34.6 pounds. All muscle and belly!
Milestones of course! The first time my son smiled is one of the most precious moments I have during the newborn stage. I also wrote down when he recognized me, rolled over, laughed, clapped, ate his first solid food (eggs), started crawling, started walking (10 months and 1 day), said his first word (mama!), went swimming for the first time, and so many more.
In addition to milestones, I also keep track of my son’s growth from a newborn through all of his doctor’s appointments and using our scale at home. Seeing how quickly he grew in length and weight is literally astounding! I bought myself a hand and footprint kit and used it every month during his first year of life. I have twelve sets of little hand and footprints and even though I was there for those moments and remember how little he was… my mind still cannot comprehend it when looking back at those tiny toes and tiny hands.
I spent a lot of timing writing about my breastfeeding journey (I had to exclusively pump) and all the work surrounding that. I also wrote about the day when we weaned my son off of breastmilk and when we were done with bottles. I can clearly remember the day and feeling excitement but also sadness because I felt that I wouldn’t be able to hold my son as much since he didn’t need bottles anymore. I also wrote about how many fewer dishes we had in the sink because we didn’t have to wash bottles, the filters, or my breast pumping equipment anymore and how we could literally get rid of the bottle warmer which had occupied the same spot on our countertop for more than one year!!
I also wrote down my son’s sleep and activity schedule since infancy which included all of his feedings, naps, and activities while he was awake. Looking back at the newborn stage, now that my son is 2 years old, I am so amazed and proud at the progress we have made, how great his sleep habits are now, and how hard my husband and I worked to get from the survival phase of parenthood into the sort of thriving and still learning phase of parenthood.
Another fond topic I enjoy writing about are the outings and activities we do together as a family. Where we go, what we did, and what went well or didn’t go so well.
As my son has become more interactive and growing into his own, unique personality, I love writing down the funny things he does and says. I also love writing about what he is interested in, what he found hilarious, and what he gravitates towards (such as any loud machine: vacuums, leaf blowers, snow blowers, heavy machinery, dump trucks, motorcycles, lawn mowers… you get the idea).
Again, I am not a writer and yet I find myself drawn to writing about my life, my child’s life, and the life of my family. I love looking back at the memories and seeing how far we have come together as a team. I talk about journaling with my own parents and they said how they regret, at times, not writing things down because now - 30 years later - they can’t remember things and wish they had a journal to go back to. In sharing this with you, I hope it inspires you to take a little time for yourself to reflect on the life you are building, the influence you have within your family, and the legacy you are leaving behind.
I’m starting to get more and more particular about the type of journal I get because this is so important to me. If you are looking for a journal to get started, I’ve put my favorites in links on my Products and Gear page, under Keepsakes. If you are looking for something more personalized, Shutterfly has high quality journals that I love too.
