Not much makes me feel worse as a mom than looking at the EMPTY baby book sitting in our office. It’s a gorgeous book, and it sits blank, silently whispering to me, “you SUCK”. I’ve tried to fill it out, I have. But, as I’m sure you can imagine, it’s really hard to reach into those cobwebs of my brain and retrieve parts of the hard drive I’ve purposely erased.
I filled a little bit out before Kendall was born, even took it to the hospital with us and had his little feet stamped in it. Then it got shuffled aside for the next three months while I dealt with the demon known as colic, a super shitty recovery, and a move halfway across the country. The next time I sat down to fill it out I got stumped within 5 minutes.
“The price of gas the day you were born was ______.”
Uhm, what? Now, I don’t know about you, but I sure as HELL was not checking out the price of gas on my way to the hospital.
Then it wanted to know things like the first time he rolled over, and all the stats from his previous appointments. I quickly became overwhelmed. Â A lot can get away from you in the first foggy three months of a newborn’s life. To be honest, we weren’t good at documenting anything from that time. Â We have a slew of newborn pictures from when he was still in the hospital taken by The Regetis (which I put together in this super sweet slideshow right before Kendall turned one), a couple taken by my mom when we got home, then nothing… no documentation for about two months, with the exception of the crazy week I spent house hunting in TX when Kendall was about a month old.
It makes me sad. He changed SO MUCH during that short amount of time and I didn’t do anything to preserve that. Â Ninety percent of my memories from that time include a lot of screaming and crying (from the both of us), itchy rashes, fevers, puke, sleep deprivation and a touch of hysteria.
A couple months ago I suddenly remembered a long lost video we uploaded to YouTube of Kendall doing tummy time. I think he was a few weeks old. It warmed my heart and I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about it. I’m going to share it here because I’m feeling all sappy and sentimental. It’s just 2 minutes of boring, adorable tummy time. Nothing special.
It’s so funny, he still makes those same faces and noises.
Okay, back to the baby book. I gave up. I didn’t know what the #1 movie was, didn’t know the gas prices, couldn’t remember the first time he rolled over. I kept putting it off and putting it off until it just all piled up. After nearly a year had gone by and I realized I’d never remember things like the order that his teeth came in or when he sat up unassisted for the first time, Â I just stuffed the baby book on a lonely shelf in the office and walked away.
The thing is, I’m not a pen to paper person anymore. I’m quick to jot notes and emails on the laptop, can upload pictures to Facebook in a flash, but I just don’t do well physically writing things down anymore (and let me tell you, my handwriting suffers because of it).
I met Sherri from MyDigiTimeCapsule.com about a year ago on Twitter. She sponsored a giveaway here and donated to my Team In Training fundraiser by giving away a couple My Pregnancy Digi Time Capsules, a digital pregnancy journal housed in a stylish USB. When she asked me to try out her latest product, the My Baby Book Digi Time Capsule, I was thrilled! I’m a digital girl, obviously, and spend much more time on my computer than scrapbooking or pasting pictures in an album. I was so excited at the prospect of this device becoming the perfect “baby book” for me.
Granted, I got it when Kendall was 18 months old already, and I still don’t remember all that stuff, but there’s something very different about skipping the questions I don’t know on this software. It’s not the same feeling of “slacker” as leaving entire pages blank.
There are so many amazing features. You can add pictures, video and audio and even create your own slideshows set to music. Along with the traditional stuff like baby’s medical history and vaccine schedule, and all about mom and dad, you can also write letters to your child for the future. My favorite feature, though, has to be the family tree. You can upload pictures of each member of the family, input information about them and organize it into a digital family tree.
Now, it does make me sad that it’s not Mac compatible. I can only use it on our PC desktop, which could possibly go up in flames someday. So if you’re a Mac only household, you’re out of luck. If, however, you’re a PC, I really do recommend it. Even if you plan on keeping a traditional book, it can’t hurt to have this beauty (and it really is beautiful and comes in several styles) hanging from your keychain. You can quickly record memories while at work or just in between Facebook status updates.
Depending on which version you want, it’s anywhere from $29.95 to $51.50.
Sherri would also like to give one to a lucky reader, so comment below telling me that I’m not a slacker. Just kidding! ; P Â But really, take a look at MyDigiTimeCapsule.com and tell me what your favorite feature is below. You can also get a second entry by tweeting about this contest. Make sure you use @BabyRabies and @Digitimecapsule in the tweet and comment here letting me know you did. I’ll use Random.org to draw a winner next Thursday, the 14th.
OH! And get this, I don’t even have very many pictures printed out. That is my biggest goal for this year. I want to get a solid photo album done by the time his second birthday comes around. It is really sad how much of my life lives on a computer. Must retrieve memories from the digital world.
Kendall is 20 months and some change, and don’t tell me this blog is his “baby book”. This blog will undoubtedly be the topic of many hours of therapy.
This post was sponsored by MyDigiTimeCapsule.com, who sent me the My Baby Book Digi Time Capsule to try for free.
Contest is closed. The winner is Teri with comment #11, as chosen by Random.org. Congrats!
49 comments
The only photos we have printed are ones from other family members, so don’t feel too badly. Although, she is getting obsessed with photos of herself, so I guess I did print some so I could laminate them along with other family members so now she as family flashcards.
But I swear, I’m totally not crafty or creative normally. I define slacker mom.
Isn’t it crazy how nostalgic you can get over a time that was, objectively speaking, HORRIBLE? I was miserable in those first weeks – in pain, sleep-deprived, terrified about SIDS, stressed about breastfeeding – and yet nowadays, a year out from the newborn stage, I’m fondly remembering the beauty of it all. Sweet spit up! Swaddles! A tiny babe!
On topic, I like the feature of writing the letter to your child!
I don’t have a baby book either. In fact, my wedding memories sit in a box in the basement waiting for the day when I might create a scrapbook. Yeah, right.
And I’m a Mac so I’m still stuck with keeping my baby boy’s keepsake stuff in a plastic tub in the closet. And to think when I quit my job I told myself I was going to be crafty! Four months later, nothing has been done except my child is still alive, lol.
omg! i need this!
i have THREE baby books for Harper and they each have a few things filled out. it’s sad. i have thousands upon thousands of photos on my computer, but never print them except for framing. i try to write stats in my blog so that one day i can refer to it when i’m filling out the baby book, but let’s face it – i’m never going to.
WANT.
I have definitely tried to keep a baby book for my little girl. She just keeps me too dang busy! Although it sounds like I do have it filled out a little more than you do!
And wow, those actually are some pretty fancy USB drives! And I love how it lets you add videos and slide shows. My baby book lets me add pictures (once I finally get them printed off), but I’m having a hard time finding the “Add Video” function. That would be freakin awesome!
Sweet! I totally know the feeling! I have the cutesy old fashion-y baby book complete with pop-up and I’ve barely filled it out & my babe’s 2! It was much easier filling out “The Inappropriate Baby Book” as the content is much more amusing, like what the first undigested item found in the diaper. Who doesn’t want to remember 4GB’s of that!? Really though, I think the letters are a cute idea.
Girl! You are hilarious! Thanks so much for the review. You make everything so funny!
I love the one that I won!
I knew the gas prices, simply because I drive for work and was always looking for the lowest ones when I had to fill up. It was about $3.75 the week Violet was born. Yuck.
We recently found out that we are expecting so this would be perfect! I can get a head start 😉
I love the fact that you can take this with you wherever you go and that it is eco-friendly. I also live in the digital world so this would be very convenient for me.
I am in the same boat! I can’t believe nine months have passed and I haven’t cracked the baby book since his first month! I was just telling my DH that the guilt of this was weighing on me. I love the fact that you can add video, too cool!
I just printed out a lot of photos from my son’s 1st year. He is 15 months & I don’t think I even know where his baby book is anymore!
I love how you can put the growth charts & videos in one place.
I have baby book for Amelia (who just turned 1 yesterday) that I’m fairly certain I haven’t opened since before she was born. I don’t know what I was thinking buying it, I never kept up with a diary as teenager either…
I like that you can make videos and slideshows fairly quickly. I do lots on the computer, but I’m not really technically savvy.
A slacker you are not. I’m just about in the same boat. My daughter is almost 2 and baby girl #2 is due 3 days after her birthday. I’m doing all the photo and info gathering now and taking a day with a girlfriend to do nothing but work on the baby book/scrapbook so I can feel like I’ve accomplished something. And then I think I’ll go with a digital version for #2 and transfer the info to a traditional book later in life…
I have the exact same problem, so I don’t think you’re a slacker at all (either that, or we’re both giant slack asses). In fact, I actually returned the baby book I bought my kid to BRU when he was a couple of months old because I knew I would never use it, and wanted my $20 back.
I like that the time capsules don’t require me to actually write anything out. I think it would be so much easier for me to type something in to a baby book between checking my e-mail and reading blogs than it is for me to pull out a book and put the effort into filling it.
you are not a slacker! i have 4 different baby books i got for thomas, not one has a thing filled out. i then decided to make a scrap book of his first year, i printed the pictures, and now they sit in a drawer in the envelop they came in.
I think the feature I like most is the “Letters to your child” feature. Sure, I could do those on my own blog, but, like you, I’m certain that will become a hot topic in therapy someday. So, having a place to neatly store all of my letters and musings and admonitions to Joshua would be great.
My favorite feather is the option to add videos. Even if I was great at getting my baby book updated (which I’M NOT), I still don’t have the option to attach all those 2 min videos of his cute little firsts. It’s a great way to house all your digital memories together and I love the baby foot USB!
I also tweeted using @CDMW 🙂
<3 C
The blankness of our baby book has been the cause of many feelings maternal inferiority in my house. Thanks for letting all of us normal people know we’re not alone. or slackers! 🙂 I’d love to try a digital solution though! so (randomly) pick me!
I need this!
I have so many random video clips of my daughter but her baby book is collecting dust on my book shelf. This would be so much easier and I love the way they look. I love the way you can add the videos right to the baby book! I also love the Letters to Your Child option!
This is the perfect baby book for the digital age! Baby books, besides being easy to forget about are pretty much boring. My mom was super about writing in mine- I love her dearly but, seriously- I don’t care what day it was when my umbilical cord fell off!! I think the ability to add digital clips and photos would be amazing! And more fun to see when you’re an adult 🙂
What a great product! My favorite feature is the portability – you can add to the book wherever you have a (PC-compatible) computer available! Glad to find out about this.
I just like that it’s digital and easier than writing stuff. I do however wish it was Mac compatible because I’d have to break out my wife’s old super slow laptop to use it.
I can’t wait until the day that people wish things were Windows compatible.
Um, wow. I never even knew something like this existed or I would’ve registered for it and hoped some one would’ve gotten it for me for my BBshower instead of the 67 blankets I received!
Milo, my little bb is almost 9 months old. My mother asks me every few weeks if I started his baby book. ya know the one that’s yet to have been actually purchased. Ooops. I don’t know why I’ve sucked at that so much. I LOVE the bejeezus out of him so why wouldn’t I want to document every toss, turn, and the story of his first blow out shit all over daddy in the hospital? I try to jot down on a note pad anytime he does something notable, and I note it on my blog so one day I can reference it.
My sister in law gave me a fully done scrapbook just needing of pictures the day milo was born. almost 9 months later it sits picture-less. Ok, as Iwrite all of this I’m starting to feel really sucky about this! We live in a digital-techy world! What can I say, if there were a Baby Book iPhone APP I’d be right on top of everything!
That sounds like a kinda stupid baby book. I mean, the print one. Who CARES what the price of gas was? Really.
I finished a wedding album for our parents on Saturday, April 19th 2008. I went into labor on the 20th, delivered on the 21st.
I figure I’ll finish up my digital baby scrap book for Ella when I’m 9 months pregnant, hoping it will send me into labor the next day. (for the baby we assume is coming, no I’m not pregnant or anything now.)
i tweeted. oh yes, i tweeted.
You are definitely not a slacker. I have a 6 month old daughter and her baby book is sitting empty in her closet.
I love the letters for the future!
Haha. Love it. I’m a scrapbooker, so I’m really looking forward to filling out a baby book and making all the baby scrapbooks and such. However, I still am finding myself drifting more and more to digital solutions. Why not use it if you have it? I save my tweets and use them as journaling for pages sometimes. I blog and facebook a lot of the things I want to remember or share. I do a lot of digital scrapbooking as well as traditional scrapbooking. I can see this being a nice medium for keeping up with things!
Very cool!! I like how easy it is, and definately more stylish than the baby books I’ve seen. Don’t feel too crappy about being a slacker…with my first one I was super mom, filling everything out and being all cute. #2 doesn’t even have a book. Oops.
Don’t feel bad..I’m a slacker, too. Robert was born just a few weeks after your son (5/19/08). I totally need this…I love to scrapbook, but now have no time. All of my photos are on the computer. Before I had Robert, I made tons of blank ready to go scrapbooks for friends/family so all they had to do was literally put the picture in…I never even did one of those for my son. Memories keep piling up in the corner with supplies that I keep buying with all good intentions. This would totally make everything easier!
I would love to win this! I love the family tree feature also! Very cool.
I love the adorable USB drives it comes on! So fun!
I like how you can add video. Those giggles and coos and babbling are so sweet!
I was slacking on my daughter’s baby book, too, which also has those price pages.
I found this link to be quite helpful: http://babysakes.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/filling-out-your-baby-book-what-happened-in-babys-world-2008-edition/
(Kendall was born in 2008, right?)
I love this! I can’t decide on one fave feature so I’ll pick two!
* I love that I can put all the little video clips of him in one place. I have little 1-2min video clips of him doing tons of stuff. Even one of his HB with a doppler. YouTube video clips is not an option in my current baby book!
* I also love that it is timeless. I can continue to add things after his 1st birthday. He doesn’t stop growing/changing at 12m!
Thanks for this giveaway and GL with your digital baby book.
Lol at this blog/”baby book” being the cause of many hours of therapy in the future.
I want to try the digital baby book! I started a traditional baby book for Luke, then quit and started my own “creative” scrapbook for him, then quit, and now he’s 16 months old and has nothing. Yikes! I love the fact that the digital capsule is eco-friendly and easy to tote along with you to show off.
THIS IS AMAZING! :] My son’s are 2.5 & 5 yrs old now but I could use these to back track, fill in the blanks, and have something that I know will last though the yrs. I have almost 2 thousand photos, videos, etc of them and this is SO much more convenient than making prints, cutting, pasting, and writing. This has SO much more than a baby book can offer. I think I’m most interested in the fact that you can record messages or write messages for the future. My sons are always doing or saying things that I wish to remember, just to get a good laugh from them over it when they’re older too. Thanks for sharing!
You are not a slacker. Every time I open that book I feel completely overwhelmed. I like the digital concept because, like you, that is where everything is. I have a ton of pictures and video of him living in the computer and nowhere else.
So my baby girl is almost 3 months and I too haven’t written in her baby book. I too also have the baby footprints. I’ve been trying to do handprints, but it seems that that might be too lofty of a goal.
I like the idea of 100’s of Guided Questions.
I didn’t read all the posts, so I apologize if this has already been said. I just plan on making an album with software such as mypublisher or blurb, although there are plenty out there. That might be a good idea for you too, you use the digital copies and arrange them on the album, then they print it out and send it to you. Also, you don’t have to worry about your glue dots drying out 15 years from now and your pictures falling out, or of your backup hard drive failing.
I could have written this post. I have on my to do list every week to add something to my little girl’s baby book and I never priortize it. And now it’s been so long that it’s adding several somethings, which just piles on the guilt and strains my already seive-like memory these days. My daughter just turned one last week and I can’t believe how much I feel like I’ve forgotten already. I hope the therapy bills aren’t too extensive!
I’m much more electronic, just like you. But I’m not even good enough to blog about it. I love the idea of the family tree in pictures. I hear about distant relatives all the time but would love to have my mom’s favorite pictures of those people to tie into the stories she tells me.
OMG, that is so crazy! I was JUST sitting her yesterday, looking across the room at Jonas’s baby book that never got (even remotely) finished, thinking about how sad I was that I slacked off in that department.
And it’s even worse with #2. He doesn’t even have a damn scrap book! At least Jonas has a scrap book from his first year. Jules has jack shit in that department. Hardly a printed photo! It’s not on purpose. I’m just too busy, man.
I don’t know what your solution is? Even with digital, it’s a LOT of work. If you figure it out, let me know. I’ll try to work it into the hundred thousand other things I have to do. 😉
I love that you can upload video… can’t do that with a paper book!
my favorite feature is the whole thing itself! what an ingenious product. as someone who is TOTALLY living in a digital world, this would make my life as a mommy much easier in regard to documenting things in my son’s life!
I am even worse – I started a baby blog when I first got my BFP and then forgot about it for months. I am just now getting back into the swing of posting, mostly for the sake of remembering things. Oh, us slackers.
I love this little USB though! I have a baby book I got for Christmas from my best friend, and while I look forward to filling it out, I am pretty sure it will end up as my mouse pad or something. I still want the USB, though, hah.
I can’t even keep up w/my blog so definitely wouldn’t be able to keep up with a paper and pencil type journal.
I love that it comes in different styles. I think the bear is my fav. This would be so much easier and would last a lot longer than a traditional baby book!
You aren’t a slacker at all! I did the same thing with my first baby. It was so hard to remember to write down all that stuff. We just had our second and I’m betting I won’t be any better.
I really like the Letters for the Future feature. Such a neat thing to do.
You are not alone! I have a 2 1/2 yr old and a 1 1/2 yr old and am kicking myself weekly about not getting their baby books completed – but really? – when do I EVER have time to???
Thanks for the chance to win this product – it looks great!
Yes, I will tweet as well!
I would have to say, the video feature would be the best. You can’t slap that in a stupid book!
Please, don’t feel bad. All I have is a calendar on my baby’s dresser that I randomly jot things in. Her baby book has three completed lines in it… maybe. Who invented these damn books? What could be a worse idea for a new mom than the pressure of writing a novel on the toughest/most awesome experience of her life while she is experiencing it all? IDIOTS, I tell you!
I am catching up on old posts and was watching your video. I had to laugh at the “i bet no one is interested in this but us”, especially since my 3 year old daughter was ignoring The Incredibles so that she could watch Kendall’s tummy time.