Milestone Weekend

Another weekend is over and the kids have accomplished more milestones. Mary has been practicing standing a few seconds on her own before plopping with full force on her bum. Abby, my soon to be 7 year old, has just jumped off the subdivision pool diving board for the first time. She was so proud of her accomplishment, and ultimately it had to be when she was ready to do it. I love watching the kids take baby steps before a big leap. Abby would practice swimming in the deep water and jumping in from the side of the pool. Then she went off my Aunt's diving board (which is lower) and finally off the higher board today. The more a child is rushed, the more they seem to resist the jump. Let them go on their own, and it's amazing what they'll decide to do.

All these little accomplishments are recorded in their calendars. When my first son, Sam, was born, I was given a Hallmark calendar to record his first year of life. It came with stickers which had milestones printed on them, "First Smile", "First Tooth Lost", "First Step", etc. Once I used up the first year of that calendar, I didn't want to stop! I recorded all sorts of things besides the stickers provided: fun outings, who we visited, typical nursing and napping schedules, funny things they said, etc. I've done this with all four. Am I caught up? No. I record them in my planner and then I transfer them to each calendar. They each have an album too. These too are behind. I always get behind when a baby is born and I have had the last two pretty close together (18 months gap). So it's like a double wammy. I loved recording all this stuff because, being third of six, I was hardpressed to find a scrap of evidence I was born. Most of my baby pictures are from really far away so you can hardly tell it's me. I think this is why I slightly overcompensate on documenting my own children's lives (and I guess why I like to take pictures really close up).

I've enjoyed using the calendars to compare the kids with eachother. Like when each one started sleeping through the night, or when they first rode a two wheeler, or how many ear infections they've had, etc. I also like to track their height and weight on one of those growth charts. I copied the chart from www.cdc.gov/growthcharts . This is cool to see if they are following the same curve. I like to think someday they'll look back on these calendars and compare them to what their own kids are doing. I'm like a family historian of sorts. Maybe my kids will do the same for their own children?