Today is my birthday. And how should one always celebrate one’s birthday? By looking through one’s baby book, of course.
Wanna look over my shoulder?
Oh goody – I hoped you would.
(Originally shared May 2, 2010.)
When Ali was born, my Mom allowed me to take out a semi-permanent loan of my baby book for comparison purposes.
And I’m quite positive that she is going to promptly cancel my loan after this post.
If not from this post, then in fear that I would one day post “The Bathtub Pic” of baby me, my brother JC, and my Dad.
Don’t worry, Mom. I know that no one wants to see that.
(Including me.)
(Mom, Would you like to come pick that picture up, please?)
Anyway. My baby book: 
The poor book looks older than me. It’s missing its cover, the pages are all yellowed and pitiful, and the sticky that’s supposed to be holding the pictures and captions in place destickified years ago.
But I still love looking through it – I don’t remember any of the events pictured, since it stops before I got old enough for memory (really, I’m just impressed that I, as the second child, even HAVE a baby book – so no complaints regarding the longevity of its continuance), but what it does do is bring back memories of looking through it as a kid, and my thoughts about the book at that time.
For instance, my biggest beef as a child was that my brother was ALL up in my baby book, and I wasn’t in his book one. single. time.
When I was young, I just knew that my parents did this simply to spite me as the middle child, but as I’ve matured to the ancient age of 28 33, I do realize that he was around for my baby book, and I was not around for his.
And I can accept that.
And what helps me accept that is that I get to laugh at the way they dressed him. Sure, I was in smock, but he got to wear full German Lederhosen:
Now. Back to me. As a child, I was always confused by the picture on the right:
I just couldn’t understand how I was walking at one month old, but baby books don’t lie. So obviously, I was.
Then there are the hippy photos of my Mom, which coincidentally always had that orange-ish tint to them, something that none of the other pictures had.
It’s almost as if the orange photo tint was some sort of aura that wafted off of hippyish people…
But as I continued through the book, I remembered why I was so upset about JC being in my baby book.There were whole pages of pictures of JUST him.
In MY baby book!
Next are the pictures from my first Easter:
Correction. Pictures of my brother and my cousins on my first Easter.
My baby book, people!!!
I was relegated the the bottom corner of the page, not good enough to put in the cute cousins shots with the rest of them, I suppose.
At least JC was in smock. There’s always that.
And at least my little brother isn’t anywhere to be found in my baby book – I can hold onto that small victory, even if he wasn’t born until years after my baby book was yellowing with age.
Oh wait. Unless you skip to the very last page, where he can be found, in a photo taken years after all of the other photos.
It’s almost as if they wanted to make sure I knew I was the middle child or something.
But.
Aside from my Middle Child issues, the most puzzling page in my baby book was from the May after I was born.
I am nowhere to be found on this page, nor is my Mom. We weren’t even in the same state when the shots were taken. The photos are from the Indianapolis 500, and brought unlimited hours of puzzlement and confusion to my childhood years.
There were three pictures:
There was my Dad…
My Dad’s friend’s wife…
And my Dad’s friend.
Or, rather, my Dad’s friend’s shirt, since that’s all I ever noticed.
What does that even mean?!
And what in the WORLD does it have to do with MY baby book?
Some questions, I fear, are best left unanswered.
Your son resembles your brother quite a bit!
OH I forgot to ask: what comic strip is that in those first few pics?
I think the first one is “Laugh Parade” and the second two are “For Better or For Worse” – when the kids were really young!
I was thinking the same thing!
It’s bizarre because he resembles my brother AND my husband’s baby pictures quite a bit – yet my brother and my husband’s pictures do not look alike! Genetics are so strange.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Hope you have a fabulous day. I agree with Tonya. Noah looks like your older brother!
Happy Birthday Rachel!!! Love looking at my photo album too, maybe I should work on my Son’s, lol. We live in too much of a digital age these days. And what DOES that shirt mean and why is it in your baby book? These are the burning questions your Mom should answer ;) hope you have a great birthday!
Hope you have a WONDERFUL day Rachel!
Happy bday! This post made me giggle. And yes, Noah totally looks like little JC – more so than our own kids do!
Happy Birthday Rachel!
That shirt is all sorts of awesome. I think your dad (or his friend) need to do a guest post on the blog to explain it all to us. I really want that shirt!
Your brother looks so much like Noah!
There’s a page in my baby book of people that seem to have nothing to do with me, including someone holding a baby pig while crying. I was also always so confused about who those people were, why one was holding a pig and why they were crying. My parents tried to tell me the kid wasn’t crying, he was really happy. I was even more confused then, because the haircut on that kid had me totally convinced it was a girl.
Happy Birthday, Rachel! I’m the youngest of three, so my baby book is pathetic in comparison to my two older brothers. Even my middle sibling has a really decent baby book, as my parents lived with my grandparents when he was little, and my grandmother was a photographer (with her own black room).
That was awesome. And perhaps, justification for charging your parents for any upcoming and necessary therapy sessions.
Wow. Does Noah ever look like your brother! That is crazy! Even the raised eyebrows look he does so well! I as well am interested to know why your dad, his friend and his friends wife are pictured there, and what the shirt means. DOes your father have any pearls of wisdom to offer in relation to that?
I just had to chuckle at the Lederhosen comment/photo because my family has photos of all the oldest boys in Lederhosen as well! It was basically a rite of passage to get your photo in the outfit. We have German ancestry so I guess it does make a little bit of sense :)
Our Lederhosen tradition is only because somebody my parents knew brought them Lederhosen from Germany. Now that’s some effective Guilt-Gifting – spanning two generations!
Wow I literally laughed out loud at that shirt. What DOES that mean?? So funny. Thanks for sharing your baby book! and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Hilarious! And happy birthday!
“For Better or For Worse”? Did you or your parents continue reading that until the end a few years ago?
I’m not sure if they read it to the end or not! But they were fans of it when we were kids.
This is so funny. As a middle child myself I totally relate and I am constantly trying to make sure my 2nd child’s baby book isn’t all pics of him with his sister! Or just pictures of his sister – LOL. And the first thing that popped into my head about your mother is “hippy dippy bologna”! :)