The illusive baby book

Before my girls were ever born, in the very early stages of conception , I became obsessed with  chronicling every single thing they would ever do. There were the usual; first tooth, first time crawling, first time sleeping through the night, first solid food, first trip to Grandma’s..and so on and so forth. but were those other things that I just new I never wanted to forget too, first tantrum, first time they bit someone, first concert, first time they threw up on me, first time they danced with a Wiggle ( oh yeah, my girl got pulled up on the stage..it was very reminiscent of Courtney Cox and Bruce Springsteen but with hot potato and smashed banana…). There have been a lot of things I have recorded. But somewhere along the way, things went horribly wrong.
The “baby Book” that I so painstakingly searched for and found after countless hours of searching the shelves of multiple bookstores has been forgotten. I mean its here. I know where it is….I think.Somehow it’s been reduced to random pieces of  paper, napkins, tissues with dates and occasions on them. To be honest, I am praying I wrote the year and the child because it may just be the action and the date. I was so in the moment that I never thought I’d forget the first day Bella laughed so hard that she blew milk out her nose, or the day 11 month old Gabs (I’m not 100% sure but I’m pretty sure, all the signs tell me) ingested shit. Let’s just say there was poop on her hands, and it looked like poop on her face. That’s all I’m saying. Yeah, I called the doctor..there was nothing they could do but tell me to keep an eye on her, give me a statistic about how 100% of all money has traces of human feces on it (EWWWW! I’m not sure if they were trying to make me feel better or worse), and I’m pretty sure they they made a mark somewhere  ( you know some special database accessible to DCFS….1 eff up you’re a dumb ass, 2 eff up’s they’re coming in and taking the kids away!) It was an accident people, if it even happened….which I’m not sure it did!
Anyways, I digress ( as always). My point being, I have become accustomed to writing these little forget me not notes, or stashing tickets to their first movies, or a napkin from their birthday party because it was
is going in the book at some not yet determined time in the near future . It’s gotten so bad that now, whenever anything happens my 5 year old promptly exclaims ” Hey , Mommy. You’re putting that in the baby book, right?” I’m really not sure if she is being facetious, or serious. Either way, it makes me feel like a rat..lower than a rat..like a flea on a rat.
This weekend, I came to a life altering decision… I am going on a scavenger hunt. I am determined to find each and every single piece of tissue, toilet paper, napkin, scratch pad paper containing rogue information that I can find. When I do, I am going to bring that illusive Baby Book up to date. I plan to gather my randomly placed post it notes of my children’s life thus far and my scattered thoughts on the whole thing and put together the most effing awesome Baby Book to ever walk the face of the earth ( you know what I mean).  I’m thinking I may just have to arm myself with wine and water , lock myself in the basement with all the papers and power through and get it done. I wonder if they will ever know the depth and breadth to the sacrifices we make for them? That Silent Ninja Mommy assistant would be priceless right about now. Next on the agenda, the baby quilt I keep promising myself that I am making from their baby clothes. Also,with each passing day, my husbands ‘crazy’ idea that I log everything that happens in our children’s life into a file on the computer..seems to sound a lot better to me .