After Leah's funeral, and when all the family except Amy's mom went back home to California, one of the first things we started working on was a scrapbook for Leah. Now, neither of us is in to scrapbooking, really at all, but we both felt that it was important, not just for our grieving process, but that it was something we needed to give to our daughter. Leah deserved it.
Amy and her mom spent two entire days driving all over the north shore picking up all sorts of scrapbooking supplies from the very basic necessities (e.g. fancy scissors, paper) to the more baby-girl-centric stickers and such, and of course an appropriately pink album. We printed out copies of our favorite snapshots from the time when the pregnancy was a secret between the two of us to the reception following Leah's memorial service. It would be some time before we had our pictures from Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, but with our personal photos printed out we set to work.
We started on July 4th and worked on Leah's scrapbook all long weekend while parked in front of the TV watching Prime Suspect, the Inspector Lynley Mysteries, a few movies I don't recall, and various other British television series all checked out from the Evanston library. Amy asserts that in this initial period, which I will call Scrapbooking Phase 1 or SP1, she became "the scrapbooking queen," a true feat since she has always loathed the activity. In my recollection, however, we both worked at more or less the same pace. We would each work on a separate page simultaneously, although we both contributed to the artistic direction of all of the pages.
Activity during SP1 naturally slowed somewhat during the week, as I had gone back to work at that point, but we still spent several hours each evening working on Leah's scrapbook. We continued steadily putting together pages with our snapshots (as well as other items such as Amy's and Leah's hospital bracelets, Melody's letter, and the program from Leah's memorial service) until we ran out of photos to work with. At that point we decided to put scrapbooking on hold until we received our Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep photos.
It has been almost a month since we got our NILMDTS photos from Deanna, and a little over a week since we started Scrapbooking Phase 2, or SP2 (there was some out-of-state travel in between). A strange thing has happened between SP1 and SP2. It turns out that my meticulous nature lends itself to scrapbooking quite well. A little too well perhaps, as somehow, somewhere along the way I became the primary scrapbooker in our family. Amy assures me that if not for her loathing of scrapbooking she would not let my meticulousness get between her and working on the scrapbook. As it stands, she is happy to give artistic input and leave the cutting, pasting, and more cutting and pasting to me. In the Klug family, scrapbooking is a man’s work.
Amy and her mom spent two entire days driving all over the north shore picking up all sorts of scrapbooking supplies from the very basic necessities (e.g. fancy scissors, paper) to the more baby-girl-centric stickers and such, and of course an appropriately pink album. We printed out copies of our favorite snapshots from the time when the pregnancy was a secret between the two of us to the reception following Leah's memorial service. It would be some time before we had our pictures from Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, but with our personal photos printed out we set to work.
We started on July 4th and worked on Leah's scrapbook all long weekend while parked in front of the TV watching Prime Suspect, the Inspector Lynley Mysteries, a few movies I don't recall, and various other British television series all checked out from the Evanston library. Amy asserts that in this initial period, which I will call Scrapbooking Phase 1 or SP1, she became "the scrapbooking queen," a true feat since she has always loathed the activity. In my recollection, however, we both worked at more or less the same pace. We would each work on a separate page simultaneously, although we both contributed to the artistic direction of all of the pages.Activity during SP1 naturally slowed somewhat during the week, as I had gone back to work at that point, but we still spent several hours each evening working on Leah's scrapbook. We continued steadily putting together pages with our snapshots (as well as other items such as Amy's and Leah's hospital bracelets, Melody's letter, and the program from Leah's memorial service) until we ran out of photos to work with. At that point we decided to put scrapbooking on hold until we received our Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep photos.
It has been almost a month since we got our NILMDTS photos from Deanna, and a little over a week since we started Scrapbooking Phase 2, or SP2 (there was some out-of-state travel in between). A strange thing has happened between SP1 and SP2. It turns out that my meticulous nature lends itself to scrapbooking quite well. A little too well perhaps, as somehow, somewhere along the way I became the primary scrapbooker in our family. Amy assures me that if not for her loathing of scrapbooking she would not let my meticulousness get between her and working on the scrapbook. As it stands, she is happy to give artistic input and leave the cutting, pasting, and more cutting and pasting to me. In the Klug family, scrapbooking is a man’s work.
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3 comments:
As a person that loathes scrapbooking, I'm really impressed with the beautiful work you two did. Jeff, the pink scissors become you!
The book really is lovely.
I remember those two days. I always had the dread of getting caught in the afternoon downpour which I think we managed both days ;-)
You are a TRUE man, my friend. And this, from an actual scrapbooker. And let it be known, that I too was once a loather of scrapbooking. Something happened to me though. And the kids? They LOVE looking at their books and show them to EVERYBODY. So, in that respect, scrapbooking is down right cool.
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