Looking Back

~Elijah Rain approximately 3 minutes old~

Those of you who also follow my flickr account may have noticed that my photostream is currently experiencing an odd sort of time warp.

~four hours old~

I've been working on a photo project for one Mr. Elijah Rain's 7th birthday.

~three days old, outside for the first time with Iain and Daddy~

Creating The Big Book of Galen left Elijah as the only child in the family, beyond babyhood, without some sort of organized record of his first year. This is a sore spot for him. And for me!

~four days old~

And here is where you will get an inkling of how truly neurotic I can be. This has been eating at me for a while now, mind you. So last week when I was having a decidedly Bad Day, I went for a hike to blow off some steam. And as I was walking I started thinking of all of the plans for this upcoming birthday...

~enjoying one of Mama's carob popsicles~

the gifts we had gotten, the ones still in progress, my own progress in trying to pull together his rather unconventional party request...and then it hit me. In all of the hubbub that is currently our daily life (we do have quite a bit going on these days!), I had totally over-looked the most important thing that I had intended to do for him; finally creating his baby book.

~starting off on an imaginary journey~

The degree that this revelation effected me was, undoubtedly, flavored by my already foul mood, but I started to brood. Oh my. And then my over-active imagination quite got away from me altogether. At which point the fantasy running through my mind snowballed into this terms of endearment/my life without me scenario in-which the frequent headaches I've been experiencing turned out to be an advanced brain tumor which abruptly ends my life, leaving my children with the documentation of their early years as the only tangible evidence of their mother's love.

ahem.

~nap time~

In said scenario I had a vague hope that someone would print off some entries here, on my behalf, to cover Màiri's first 4 months. But what of Elijah?? No, he was surly destined to spend the rest of his days wandering the earth feeling unloved and unwanted....this dear boy of mine whom I adore more then I can ever put into words.

~on his first birthday~

And with my mind focused on these dim, dark thoughts, my pace became faster and my vision more obscured until I all at once found myself flat on my ass, bringing all of the ranting and raving that I had been uttering under my breath to an abrupt halt.

Thankfully there was little harm done, apart from a bit of tenderness come morning. My little passenger was blessedly unharmed, though rather perturbed at the rude awakening from her generally peaceful afternoon nap.

~saying goodbye after a visit with Me-Mom and Pop-pop~

Doomsday delusions aside, it's starting to feel horridly middle-child-ish. Though the fact is that it has nothing to do with being a middle child and everything to do with the far more difficult subjects of untimely illness, mold spores and contamination. Still issues that I'm trying to work out.

~at his first birthday party~

But at this point I have a handful of pictures that we had scanned immediately after his birth and a good many pictures starting at around 9.5 months, when we got our first digital camera, which is a starting point.

Once all this is in order, it will be on to attempting to decontaminate the massive volume that is Iain's baby book.