The Three Boxes

I am the mother of three children and I love them all equally, but when I look at the top of the wardrobes I see that they are not equals.

My first-born has an enormous baby keepsake box (two in fact), which are filled to the brim with cards, pictures, photos and general memorabilia to celebrate her arrival into the world. My second child has a much smaller one, filled with fewer cards, fewer welcome letters and fewer mementos to celebrate her arrival. My third child has a shoebox. This is filled with a few keepsakes and a lot of tissue paper to give the appearance of it being full to the brim.

In the area of keepsakes I feel like a complete failure when I compare myself to my girlfriend who has the perfect baby keepsake box for each of her three children. All are of equal size and they include the newspaper and magazines from the day they were born. In years to come her children will be able to flick through the papers and gain a real insight into the fashion of the time; who were the world leaders, what celebrities were doing, what were cooking and what cars we were driving. The final keepsake piece is the toy of the day, an untouched Barbie, still in its box and the Lego figurine for that year. They are a wonderful treasure trove to celebrate the arrival of her children.

I am always tempted when I look at my children's baby keepsake boxes to either add to the them, or in a clean up frenzy tempted to throw out some of the things that have found their way in the keepsake treasure trove. I have tried my girlfriends perfect treasure box, but a rainy day saw me rip off the top of the neatly packaged Barbie Doll and that was the end of that. All I can suggest is to find what works for you. 

My two eldest love nothing more than pulling down their baby boxes to re-read the cards and look at the mementos. What’s in the baby keepsake box, is theirs, and they treasure the memories that I have created for them. It may not be perfect or look as pretty as others – but the memories in there are special to them. My third child thinks his baby box is pretty special, and despite it being a bit light on with keepsakes, he considers it to be much better than the others as it contains his very first pair of soccer boots and that’s the greatest memory of all!

Louise Gaspar is a Brisbane based blogger and mum extraordinaire

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