Creating a Life Book: page 8, court -- and some final thoughts
A
week after we returned from our first family
holiday, we were scheduled to be in court to finalize Alex's adoption. Page 8 of Alex's Life Book
commemorates that day. For this page, I decided to keep it simple: there's just one photo -- a family
portrait, taken in front of the judge's bench. I retyped some of the adoption language from the decree granting
the adoption, and used that as a backdrop for the photo. I added the following quote, from Desmond Tutu:
"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you." And, for the first time, I added
ribbon to the page -- sort of to signify that the three of us were "bound" together for life, I suppose.With this page, I think I'll leave you guys to finish the life book on my own -- after all, everything that I'll do from here on would be exactly the same stuff any family would include in their children's scrapbooks. Doing this book has been a wonderful exercise, though, and I STRONGLY recommend that every adoptive familiy create a life book for their little ones, even if they also have a blog (as I do). The truth is that a life book (a) gives your child something tangible to hold that tells her own, special story, (b) will become a wonderful tool to discuss your child's adoption, and (c) is, frankly, pretty darn impressive. I mean, imagine: as your child grows up, she'll have in her possession an heirloom created by YOUR HANDS -- something she can share with her children, and her children's children. The act of putting together a book like this is an act of love -- and one your child is sure to appreciate.
For those of you who are about to start their own life books, I'll include links here for each page that I did. Trust me, the life book that I created for Alex is FAR from professional -- but, perhaps, you'll get some ideas on how to create yours (or not create yours, as the case may be!). Thanks to those of you who left words of support along the way ... it meant a lot!
Creating a Life Book: Getting started
Creating a Life Book: page 1, Alex's birth
Creating a Life Book: page 2, the first 24 hours
Creating a Life Book: page 3, placement day
Creating a Life Book: page 4, spreading the news
Creating a Life Book: page 5, christening
Creating a Life Book: page 6, the first six months
Creating a Life Book: page 7, our first family holiday
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
CMJenn 2-10-2006 @ 8:34PM
I absolutely loved your Life Book, and just wanted to say how much I'm sure your daughter will love looking at it and talking with you about the stories when she's older. I wish everyone would do this for their kids, not just adoptive parents... it's been proven to be great for kids' self esteem!
And PS... I'm sorry, I have to put in a plug. I am actually a Creative Memories consultant, and we have absolutely beautiful (but SIMPLE) products for preserving your stories and photos. Notice I said "stories" - journaling is a very big deal to us, much more than all that other "stuff" that professional scrapbookers put on their pages that ends up in magazines. Creative Memories doesn't do ribbons or tags or anything metal or brads or anything that might be called "scrapbooking jewelry"... we only sell albums, papers and stickers and stuff to help you make a really simple, but fun to complete and interesting to look at, album. Find a consultant in your area and hook up with her, I can just about guarantee that her advice and expertise in helping you complete your albums will be worth any money you spend with her! www.creativememories.com
But just remember that when your daughter is looking at her book, she is not really going to care whether there's a teddy bear sticker or pink or yellow paper or a metallic doodad stuck on the page. What will matter to her is that you wrote down what you were feeling and how much you love her. If you get too bogged down in how much STUFF there is out there like the dried flowers and $4 page embellishments, the whole thing will stress you out so much that you will avoid it altogether.
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