I lost focus on Tessa's baby book once she got mobile and I started this blog. And as much as people say that their blogs are their baby books or their love letters to their babies, do I really think that Tessa will come back here in 10 or 20 or 30 years and read about how she cut teeth or threw tantrums? Heck no. She's going to be much too busy studying for exams or smoking pot or holding some boy's sweaty hand to come back and comb through all this mess. And I think every little girl (or boy) needs a book that her mama can put in her hands when she's old enough, as proof of how much she loved her. Plus, Nekos and I (mostly Nekos) have taken so many beautiful pictures of Tess that I didn't want them to get swallowed whole by our computer.
I'd been seeing lots of pretty Pinhole Press baby books created by bloggers like A Cup of Joe and Jen Loves Kev, and decided to put one together in time for Tessa's second birthday. It's really big, 80 pages, and took many nights and not a few frustrations. I love the way the book turned out, but the process of putting it together wasn't the most user-friendly. Rather than inserting photographs at random or having the luxury to move photos around in the book, you had to decide in advance exactly what order you wanted your 80 photos to be in. So, tiresome but worth it. And also the pages are matte so I plan to write in some love notes and descriptions of where we were in some of the photos.
Here are a few spreads I especially love:
This one kind of makes me want to cry. I miss this little baby: