Welcome to the farewell Motivational Monday! As the last Monday of March is upon us, I wanted to focus on another resolution I had that I'd like to hold myself to—remembering everything! As a mom of a young child, I oftentimes feel like the time is just rushing by. Of course, in the moment, every day can seem so long—I found the early baby stages to be that way especially! Then I felt like I looked up one day and my daughter was a year and a half old, and there are certain details that I can't even remember! Her school recently asked me what age she started sitting up by herself and, truthfully, that whole period is such a blur that I couldn't recall. And that is only my first kid! I decided then and there that I want to structure my memory-keeping better so that the time doesn't pass us by without leaving some lasting impressions.
Today, I'm sharing the easy-to-adopt methods I'm implementing to preserve the memories from our most precious years as a young family.
Implement Technology-Free Family Time: I'm definitely guilty of trying to multitask during Mommy-Marlowe play time. It's frustrating for both of us, as I feel I'm not really getting things done the way I'd like to and she isn't getting my full attention. Plus it's hard to remember your time together when one eye is on your smartphone! Recently we've committed to a "no tech" time period from dinner time until Marlowe's bedtime. It's so nice to sit together as a family and chat about the day, read books and enjoy bath time without my attention being pulled in a hundred different directions. Better memories for sure.
Keep a Journal: Try keeping a notebook beside your bed and writing a little about the day before you lay down at night. It's amazing how just the gems of what you'd like to remember will come flooding in to your brain and it's shocking how little of these details you will remember when you go back a few months from now and reread it! It really proves how much slips through our minds in our busy daily lives.
Does a big bad journal intimidate you? I'm obsessed with "Mom's One Line a Day" books. You can use them for more than one child over the years and each day only gives you a few lines to jot down, leading to a lot less pressure. Once Marlowe started talking, I found this was a really fun way to jot down some of the hilarious (and bizarre) things that came out of her mouth that I probably never would have remembered otherwise.
Make Albums: I'm absolutely guilty of having twenty million pictures of my daughter on my phone and never ever, ever printing them out or making a tangible album out of them. This is the millennial's dilemma, for sure! I mean, what good do all my photos of Marlowe's childhood do her, if she can never flip through them as an adult and reminisce? Thank goodness for Chatbooks! They are a super easy and affordable way of organizing your memories and having tangible books to have and hold for years to come! Each album is only $8. Simply sign up, download the app and upload pictures from your Instagram feed or camera roll. A week later, a chic little book gets delivered to your door. If you'd like to try them out, use my code HAPPILYEVA which has a $16 value.
I hope you have enjoyed this Motivational Mondays series as much as I have. It's really pushed me to get out of my rut and push myself to do better each week! Thanks for inspiring me. Don't forget to keep following along with me on my Instagram and on Happily Eva After!
Images by Nina Suh for Love and Lemonade Photography
*Many thanks to Covergirl for sponsoring this post! As always, the thoughts and opinions expressed above are entirely my own.
