J is for Journaling

I am and have always been a personal historian. I have especially enjoyed collecting and chronicling Lila's life and my short (read more details under G) pregnancy.

Here are three top-notch books:

1] The New Parents' Fun Book: Laugh Yourself Silly Through Baby's First Year
Plusses: Fun games like Just Super (what super power do you wish your baby possessed?), a curse word cross-word puzzle (ie. words you'll never get to say again) and lists like Mommy's favorite, Menu Madness, and stickers to make a puppet show, put on the butt of diapers and label all the things that are yours.
Minuses: some of the things in the book are just impossible to do like adding a picture of your first date, your reaction to the hospital bill or the birthing process and, I didn't really want to use the stickers as I would have to tear pages out of the book (I know I'm a sicko).

2] Butterflies and Hiccups: A Guided Pregnancy Journal
Plusses: They were talking about this book on the Today Show or something like that and I liked the questions in it. There are sections in this book that have to be answered after the baby is born and you bring him/her home and questions that address what happened when you bring the baby home. There are sections for pictures and thoughts from your partner are also encouraged.
Minuses: While I enjoyed this book immensely and understand that most people like to journal the month by month pregnancy experience the same questions over and over could get tiring. And, I also thought this book was going to be less of that and more of the broad journaling questions, at least that's what was highlighted during the interview about it. I do wish there was a pregnancy journal out there that was just questions about it that could be answered instead of a day by or month by date Q and A...hmmm, maybe when I get the time I'll write one.  Time to write a book? *chuckle, chuckle*

3] Baby's First Book
Plusses: First, that isn't a big title on the front, it's actually a big sticker that comes off quite easily. I love this book. It was great and rewarding (especially for those of us--me--who like to have goals) at the end of every month, as I added pictures and answered questions that pertained to that particular month of Lila's life. We still look at this book, as Lila likes to hear stories about herself and there are pictures, lots of pictures, of her and things she likes and I can read to her all about things that I remember and those memories become her memories. Sigh. There are also recipes for tiny person friendly foods.
Minuses: I don't really have any minuses. I suppose if you didn't like scrapbooking and journaling this type of book could be daunting.


And, my favorite websites for chronology

Facebook

What I like: I like, no I love the Timeline...it remembers events and such better than I do and, it's so fun to look back on things (frankly, I need to add more stuff to the timeline--summer project)! And, it dates pictures and allows you to share with as many or as few as you'd like. I love the cover picture. I love that you can see, on first glance what I like, what I value, who I am...I even like the ads on the right. I know, I know FB doesn't need somebody advertising for it, but it's like scrapbooking or journaling only it holds more than any book could.

Shutterfly

What I like: While it isn't as user friendly as I would like. It does allow you to pick backgrounds and change the template. Even cooler, it allows you add milestones with comments and pictures. This is cool as these milestones are things I'd like to remember and have pictures for, but wouldn't know where to put them. I also make Shutterfly books. I've made Lila's year one and am working on year two and then I wait for coupons that make the books cheap and have them made.