Baby Blurb

Over the holidays, my Mom pulled out my baby book to compare my growth to Emi’s. I discovered that there are actually many similarities between us, even if she doesn’t look like me. We were both born with a ton of hair, we were both (or still are) in the 75%+ percentile for weight, and we both walked around the same time. While it’s always fun to look at old pictures of yourself, I found it even more interesting to see the artifacts my mother has saved. My baby book includes hair from my first haircut, my first tooth, and, brace yourself people, my post-birth umbilical cord. Why? Is it because I was the first-born or is "Granny Janny" just crazy? (I’m kidding Mom...well, kind of.)

I had a hunch early on that my attempts to maintain a baby book would not be successful, so I created a blog for Emi when she was a month old. No one read her blog except for her dad and me. I blogged every Sunday and included photos and any fun stories from the previous week. This worked well because it was very low maintenance and essentially all I could handle at the time.

Here is an excerpt from Emi’s blog:

Week 18…A Fire truck and 2 Police cars

This week, your mom officially went loopy. She wore her shirt inside out one day to work and left a size sticker on her sweater the next. To top it off, she locked you inside the car and had to call 911 to come and rescue you! It was slightly embarrassing since it happened on a very busy street in San Francisco. First, I had to run into a hair salon to use their phone since my cell phone was locked in the car. When I called 911, I figured they would send one police car or a small fire truck. Even when I heard the sirens blaring, I assumed another fire was happening somewhere nearby. Why would they need the sirens on to help me? Moments later I discovered that, NO, it was indeed for us.

The sirens naturally brought more attention to us. Soon, all of the merchants on the street stepped out of their shops to see where the fire was. No fire, though, just a Mom that has officially lost her mind. After about 20 minutes, you were rescued and remained completely unphased because you had slept through the ENTIRE event!

Other than that fun filled day, your week was pretty mellow. You had the sniffles on Monday, so Dad stayed home with you. Friday, he stayed home with you again to take you to your four-month appointment. Dr. Wright said you are in the 50th percentile for weight and height. You now weigh about 13.5 pounds and have grown to 24.5 inches long! You are still sleeping really well at night, but during the day you are quite the cat napper. You are laughing much more and you like to look around a lot. You are reaching for many more things and slowly learning to sleep without being swaddled. Hooray!

Recently, I came across the company Blurb. Blurb lets you turn your blog into a published book. Perfect! They have many samples of other types of books you can create.

It looks simple and the prices seem reasonable. If you are one of those annoyingly creative and crafty people, you can sell your books through blurb as well. They have a lot of great examples on their site and, if you ever considered creating a hard copy of your blog, this could be an option. Just imagine: you could share your blog with your kids or read it again and again when you are old and want to relive your wild and crazy blogging days. The possibilities are endless!

I haven’t created Emi’s book yet because I’m still debating if I will keep her blog going until she turns two. I wonder how many blackmail photos I can put into her baby blog book?

How do you document your kiddos' childhood? Do share!

Also, for any new moms reading this post, there is NO need to keep your child's umbilical cord. Really, throw it away.

-Kacey