Memory lane

Tonight I took a bittersweet stroll down memory lane.  Chloe is the "Star Student of the Week" at school starting tomorrow, and last Thursday she brought home a packet of pages to be completed for the star student wall.  A few of them required photographs of various things like family, a pet, Chloe as a baby, etc., so naturally the old box of photos came out.  I also grabbed the CD containing the website I maintained for Chloe the first two years of her life, since not all of those photos were in the box.  Oh my gosh.  I wanted to cry.  I know that almost six years have passed since she came into our lives, but how is it really possible?  Looking at all the sweet photos of when she was so, so small, I can hardly even remember her that way.  Even looking at Ryan, who tomorrow will be to-the-day the EXACT age Chloe was when he was born, I don't remember her ever being as little or young as he is.

2 months old and already so spirited!

I had to pat myself on the back for my efficiency in and commitment to documenting every little detail of Chloe's first two years.  I wrote detailed monthly updates and several in between, and took a million pictures, even back then before I had my "nice" camera.  Memories came flooding into my mind tonight as I looked and read, and I was just overcome with happiness.  I am so grateful I had the discipline to stay on top of journaling as things were happening and as Chloe was changing.  I wouldn't have remember even a quarter of it had it not been written down.

Poor Ryan doesn't have nearly as much documented as Chloe does, but I suppose that's to be expected after the first child.  Thankfully he's a boy and probably won't care anyway when he's older.  And he does have a heck of a lot more good quality baby pictures than his sister!  I honestly don't even remember the last time I wrote an official update about Ryan.  I don't like that at all because it isn't like me to let things like this go for that long, but I am at least comforted to know I have a nearly four page word document saved on my desktop, basically summarizing the last year of milestones, quotes and sweet things about him.  Maybe I'll actually get around to formulating it all into a blog post before his birthday in nine days.

Between tonight and just this time of year in general, I am feeling majorly nostalgic and tender of heart.  I am so grateful for my children and for the many joys they've brought into my life, then and now.  It's such a neat thing to have something like a photograph or journal entry to remember those special moments by because they really do go fast and are so easily forgotten otherwise.