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.  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.  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.  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,  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  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!