I've been working on getting Carson's scrapbooks up to date today.  I've always enjoyed scrapbooking and, long ago, I set a goal to document the high spots of my children's lives from baby showers and leaving the hospital through driver's license and high school graduation.  I've finished Blair's books....a total of four.  Anything that happens to her from this point on will be up to her to remember the best way she can.  I'm working on Carson's third book.  I'm not telling you this because I need to be publicly recognized for the hours and hours and hours of tedious work and the hundreds of dollars spent and the sheer dedication that it has taken to fulfill this commitment to giving my children a historical record of their lives, but just sayin' so the worldwide web will know.

When I found out I was pregnant with our son, I told myself, right then and there, that I would not let my second child become one of those forgotten, little souls who has an empty baby book with only a couple of blurry pictures hanging onto its pages by yellowed tape.  You know the child who's taken to Olan Mills when he's one and doesn't return until his senior portraits.  You know, on Halloween, the child who is whatever her big brother was the year before only with the sleeves rolled up and a safety pin to tighten it up in the back.  The poor, undocumented souls can be found in their raggedy, stained car seats, wearing faded Keds with the scuffed up toes, sporting their brother's old jacket that had his name crossed out with black magic marker and theirs written neatly underneath it. 

I, being a loosely documented second child, knew something about these pains and the reality of rarely being photographed.   Don't get me wrong.....I had the most wonderful parents and I know that they were busy, back then, making a living and cooking and all the other things they did so perfectly well, but, on the rare occasion that they did snap a picture, my brother's big head was always in the middle of it like a big, pesky housefly stealing my moment.  I mean....really, could I not have a few pictures by myself?   It's like it was a waste of a flash cube if he wasn't in there too.  Let me pause here and give you some examples.