A Trip Down Memory Lane

Because I went on a cleaning spree this weekend (and because Anthony broke our camera so I haven't snapped new pictures of him in over a week; I am dangerously close to having my "mom card" revoked!) I decided to share my trip down memory lane.

Saturday I sorted through boxes of photos, clothes and other momentos from the little over a year since Anthony was born. Everything is now organized and labeled (yes, labeled!) in albums and bins, and tucked neatly into my closet, which means several things:

1. I now actually have an answer to the rhetorical question, "If your house was on fire and you could only save one thing, what would it be?"

2. About 10 years from now, I can make Anthony roll his eyes and say, "Mom, you're so lame!"

3. There is a box in my closet that contains a candle, a crumpled smiley face sticker and human hair, despite the fact that I am neither a serial killer nor a Voodoo priestess.

Seriously, I got a lot done, and only teared up once, when I found the newborn-size diaper I had saved and remembered how tiny and helpless Anthony used to be and how frightened and helpless I used to feel. Or maybe I was crying because I actually saved a diaper, who knows.

One of the best parts was sorting through old baby clothes, probably because I love clothes in general and associate them with memories...I may not be able to recall where I put my car keys, but name a big event and I can probably tell you what I wore. Anyway, each time I have cleared Anthony's drawers to make room for the next size up, I have put aside a few favorites...

The outfit he would have come home from the hospital in, had Brandon and I known how to put on a diaper. Do I really need to elaborate?:

A favorite sleeper from the days when the term "sleeper" was largely a misnomer:

The first three-month-old onesie he wore...I remember when Aunt Jenny put it on him and he wasn't drowning in it, it was the first time I realized he really was growing and wasn't starving and maybe, just maybe, everything would turn out OK:

I also saved clothes that say something about the special people in Anthony's life:

My dad, an avid fisherman, got Anthony a "Someone who loves me went to Bass Pro Shop" shirt:

Grandpa Dave gave the little guy a onesie from his longtime employer, Caterpillar:

From my mom, who loves Johnny Cash, the little guy scored this "Crawl the Line" onesie:

From Grandma Char, who has provided Anthony with a number of his cuter outfits, these "What Santa doesn't bring me, Grandma will" PJ's, which match a pair Anthony's cousin wore that same Christmas:

What do I hope to accomplish by saving (and labeling! Seriously! With sticky labels upon which I wrote the memory I associate with the outfit!) these clothes? I'd like to think it's so Anthony can be reminded of relatives who live too far away, but I've already put my money on the eye-rolling response, so I guess it's for my own sentimental reasons.

Which is also why I created a box of momentos from Anthony's first year. Will he ever want to look at the "1" candle from his birthday cake, a smiley face sticker he wore home from school one day or clippings from his first haircut? I doubt it, but I probably will.

Then there are the photos. Boxes of them.

Apparently, when Anthony was tiny, I didn't realize I didn't have to regurgitate the contents of my camera card onto Walgreens.com and click "order all." And that I didn't have to get doubles. So, there are stacks of pictures from early on that look like Anthony just ended a five-day vodka bender. I wasn't sleeping much at the time, OK?

I have since become much better at editing myself (though you wouldn't know it from this blog), and, while I snap just as many pics of Anthony, I now only download and order the good ones.

Anyway, my good snapshots are now in albums and my "why did I take a picture of THAT???" shots are filed in neat, attractive, matching photo boxes.

As for Anthony's professional portraits, of which there are many:

They are in their own "professional photos" album (do you know how hard it is to find a photo album that isn't split into 4-by-6 slots and that actually accommodates 8-by-10's? I did finally find one and immediately realized why they're so hard to find, because it is IMPOSSIBLE to get the plastic cover to lie flat over the photo without a bunch of unsightly wrinkles and air bubbles). Anthony's "head shots" are now in said album, and, because professional photo packages are never based on realistic family/friend group sizes (either that or most people are more popular than me) and the idea of throwing away pictures of your kid literally makes you want to throw up, the 3,520 extra shots are now in a plastic folder tucked neatly inside said photo album.


Anyway, the point of all this isn't to say, "Yay, me!" (well, it kind of is, I do have a birthday coming up. Brandon.) but to give fair warning to anyone who comes to the (clean and organized!) Josephsen household that you will be forced to look at lovingly-constructed photo albums and memory boxes of our kid.


Just kidding Grandmas and Grandpas! Please still come! We need you!