The Memory Keeper

A while ago I was writing a personal mission statement and thinking about all the different roles I have, homeschooler being just one of them! Under the family section I wrote "Keeper of Family Memories".

What do I mean by that? Well, when Sophie was first born, I received all the usual advice about "Make the most of these early years because they grow up so fast", and I believed it. I want to record these precious events and milestones in my children's lives. I want to be able to remember, and I want them to have the opportunity to remember too.

Here are some ideas I've thought of so far about how I can fulfill my role as "The Memory Keeper":

1. Take Photos. I don't think any new parent needs to be reminded to take photos of their first child, but somehow life gets pretty busy by the time the second and third child arrive, and we don't seem to have our finger poised on that camera button quite so often. I don't want my younger children to think that I love them any less. My children just love to scroll through old family photos on the computer.

2. Take Film Clips. Since all of our children have spent most of their lives in Russia, we used to take lots of video footage, put it together onto tapes and post them to the grandparents back in England. Recently we've been taking shorter clips on our digital camera and uploading them to the internet or just storing them on the hard drive. The children love to see themselves on film! I grew up in the age before video cameras, and I often think how wonderful it is that children get the chance to see footage of themselves when they were little.

3. Make Baby Books. My mother managed to complete a record of my first year growing up, but for whatever reason my younger brother's baby book only goes up to 7 months. I don't think he's particularly bothered by that, but anyway I gave myself the goal of making a full 1-year record for each child. With all our travelling this has meant having to think ahead a bit. When Nathaniel was born I wrote down all the details of his birth, kept his hosptial tags and ultrasound pictures and a few of the Congratulations cards. I got all four grandparents to write a little letter to him, and my husband and I did the same. Back in Russia I made sure I kept writing up all his milestones each month and taking regular photos. He's now 2 1/2, but I've just completed his baby book, documenting the whole of his first year.

4. Keep Records. With each child I've continued keeping a record of their development even beyond their first year. About every 6 months or so I'll open the Word document and just add another paragraph about things they can now do, favourite toys/food/friends, funny things they've said or done, places they've been etc. I'm hoping to prepare a scrapbook for each child when they leave home just looking back over their life so far from year to year. I'm guessing this will be important for our TCKs (Third Culture Kids) to help them feel more connected despite all the moving and goodbyes that are just part of their life.

5. Scrapbooking with the Kids. It was recommended to us for our home assignment to make a scrapbook with the children of our time back in England, the people we've met, the places we've been to, where we've been living and so on. Sophie has already said how she really wants to show it to her Russian friends when she gets back to help them understand what she's been doing. We haven't actually started it yet, but I've been saving tickets and leaflets and trying to take photos of each family we spend time with. This also works the other way. At a recent conference, one of the British children had a lovely scrapbook of what his life had been like in Japan. I'm sure it was really helpful for him to be able to show others his school and his Japanese friends so that we could better understand what life had been like for him there.

6. Guestbooks. When we were married we asked someone to give us a guest book as a present. At first we would get overnight guests to sign it and leave a little comment. After a while we realised that it would be great to get dinner guests to do the same, partly since there was no way we were going to fill the book with just overnight guests alone, and partly because we wanted to remember the many friends and strangers from all sorts of different countries that have come to our house for a meal . Our little ex-pat community in Russia is constantly changing, and it's lovely to have a little record of each one of these families that we've been friends with, as well as all our local friends.

7. Grandparent Books. My Granny suffered from Alzheimer's before she died. She wouldn't remember who I was or what she did yesterday, but get her talking about what she did during the war and she was away! It occurred to me that actually I knew so little about her life or the life of my parents, and there were so many interesting things to know. For example, my father was born in a Scottish castle, because my grandparents were stationed there during the second world war and it had been turned into a hospital. I asked my mother the other day how come I was fairly musical but neither of my parents could sing a note, and she told me that my grandfather had sung in the church choir and my grandmother used to accompany him on the piano. I never knew that. So, anyway, about four years ago we gave our parents a 'Grandparent Book' each. It has pages for them to fill in on details of their lives, what it was like growing up for them, where they lived and how they lived and so on. Every year we have to drop not-so-subtle hints that they should get on with it without implying that we think they're going to kick the bucket any time soon. I'm really looking forward to reading them.

So those are just a few ideas I've had so far. There are many, many other things you can do to record family memories.

Qu: What are some of the ideas that you've had?

Abide in Him!

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