ahhh, the “baby book.”   Is there any psychosis in third tri (other than a Labor Watch) quite like discovering the perfect baby book?  I think not.  It was sometime in July that the thought came upon me over burritos lunch at my desk — OH MY GOD, I DON’T HAVE A BABY BOOK!!

In my creative daydreams where I’m a wicked combination of Rachael Ray & Martha Stewart (minus the hard time), I lovingly sit down every evening, putting together the most beautiful scrapbook, full of keepsakes & photos of professional quality.  Then that dream comes to a screeching halt as I remember the half-finished Senior Year scrapbook that is stuffed in a rubber bin in my attic & the quilt of sorority tshirts I never got around to sewing (as a confession, I cannot even sew.  so first step to that process would be, learn to sew.  then make tshirt quilt.  I failed at both).  PRE-MADE, Blair.  Just suck it up & admit that your destiny shall always, always be relying on someone else’s creative genius. So I began tearing through websites, Googling “baby book” at wild abandon, & making a beeline for Hallmark on my lunch break.  Only to come up completely disheartened.  Truly, it’s no offense to personal taste, but I don’t do characters like Pooh or Superman.  Or anything boasting a baby monkey wearing a diaper while swinging from a smiling pear tree.  It’s just not my taste.  & even though the practical side of me says that my son in all of his grunting testosterone may never give two flying cahoots about his baby book, I know that a fuzzy panda on the front would ensure that he never takes a peek down memory lane.  Not to mention that those books never have enough space past how much the baby weighed, his name, & a few places to Elmer a picture down to the page.  There needs to be a major overhaul in the mass-produced baby book industry, in my opinion.

Then, thanks ever to a few e-friends, I was referred to ednamae on Etsy.  (OH MY GOD, if you don’t know Etsy, then RUN.  It’s as dangerous as a meth addiction, but you get to keep your teeth).  Her work is gorgeous.  It’s modern.  It’s personalized.  It doesn’t have any diapered jungle creatures or Pooh pigging out on the cover.  IT WAS JUST WHAT I WANTED.

I picked out my cover, the inserts, & even added a few extras – “Preggers” to record the pregnancy, extra photo sleeves, & the extended memory pack for holidays & birthdays.  It’s a little pricey (I admittedly dropped a cool $90.00) but I kept telling myself, “THIS IS HIS BABY BOOK.”  This is what I’ll pull out 30 years from now on his birthday, remembering how far we’ve come.  It’s where I will record his first smile, how we celebrated his first year of life, & what I felt that first week we came home.  A few emails between the owner/designer allowed me to customize a few aspects — being Baptist, we don’t have a “First Communion,” so she graciously allowed me to change that page to read “Baby Dedication.”  & when my cover was backordered, she offered to ship the “insides” free so I could get started & then ship the cover when it came in.  I declined since there was no definite rush, & she kept me in the loop to ensure it would arrive before Harrison.

It’s perfect.  & for those of us that are creatively challenged (to put it nicely), it’s incredibly easy — I just fill in the information, slide in a few photos, & it looks completely classy.   & since it’s not bedecked with that silly diaper-wearing monkey, I have no shame in leaving it on our coffee table.  Who knows?  Maybe he’ll think it’s cool enough to skim over when he’s older.