Why you should blog about... scrapbook.. chatbook... and video your family (or at least one of those)

This weekend we had a visitor. A good friend of Shelby's came and spent the weekend. Shelby said, "lets watch old videos". And so Kris pulled out the old, old video tapes of the kids. Actually the tape we watched was so old that Stefani was 3 and Shelby was 1.

The picture was so clear and so vivid and I was suddenly taken back to our time in Iowa. The first scene captured the kids in the bathtub. (rated G of course). Shelby was sucking on a washcloth. Stefani had big, big eyes and a really, really bad haircut. In the video she talks to us in a cute little voice. Some splashing happens, and some crying.

Then the camera pans the entirety of our small apartment/condo. You can see that we have virtually nothing, but everything is pretty tidy. Then you see some of our women neighbors and I making Christmas cookies with the kids.

After this there is some tape of me playing the piano. I am wearing a really ugly Christmas sweatshirt and I have really big hair, and really thick eyebrows. I look very, very young. In the video, Shelby whimpers and I pick her up and let her bang on the piano while I resume playing.

Then you see Stefani up in her room playing with her toys and pulling all her clothes out. She also shows us her Cinderella panties. Then Kris answers an ancient phone and you see him up close. He is looking about 14 and has really, really nice thick poufy hair.

The video continues with Shelby taking her first steps and us cheering her on. You can see her big brown eyes and her hair curling back by her neck. She is also sucking her thumb and her sucky finger.

Then we are treated to some documentation, in this same video, of Grandpa Payne's 90th birthday and of all the relatives talking and of the puppet show our family put on complete with more big hair (me) and visual aides I made that Stef held and also threw.


These are obviously pretty magic moments to me. Which would be completely gone and forgotten had we not captured them. Looking at these moments 20 years later I can make different observations than I did at the time. At the time I was a new parent. I really wanted to do things right and I tried really hard but I had no yardstick to measure by and no experience to go by. Now that I am an experienced momma I watched the video and thought. "Wow, I was really patient then". and "Shelby obviously needed a nap in this video, wonder what I was thinking"... or "The house was really clean for having 2 young kids"... But mostly I just marvel that the kids grew up so fast and that those moments past by so quickly.

But I love remembering!!!!!! When I have a really discouraging day there is nothing better than looking through a scrapbook, this blog, my chatbooks, my journal or the videos and remembering the good days.

I wonder if that's what it will be like when we die and we are experienced earth dwelling people. Will we get to watch videos of our life and reflect back on it? Will things make more sense as we watch and will we feel relief and happiness when we get the bigger picture?

I like to think so.

There is reason everyone loves throwback photos. We do tend to romanticize the past. Or sometimes forget. Maybe that is protective in a way. Some things in life we get through and remembering every single microscopic detail would be excruciating. So we don't .


But keeping some type of record is important.