Family Tales

I’m a new mom.

Well, technically, I’m a six-month-old mom.

And something about being a new mom has made me think differently about, oh I don’t know, let’s say, almost everything.

About a month ago, I was flipping through my calendar and saw that Veterans Day was coming up. My husband and I come from some brave and good and country-loving people, men who have served on the American battlefield and wives who, just as courageously, let them. And I realized something.

These brave and good and country-loving people are people my baby will probably never know.

But I want him to.

If not from afternoons of sitting on their laps and eating chocolate chip cookies while they re-tell the lessons of their lives, from their stories.

So that’s what I’m preparing for him. I’m just starting, but I’m making a book. A book of family stories, so that someday when my baby isn’t a baby anymore and he comes home from school with a stack of history books, I can wrap him in my arms, pull him on my lap, and tell him about the courageous and wonderful people he came from who lived it.

I want him to know that Grandpa saw the famous flag-raising on Iwo Jima, but I also want him to know that he put some extra eggs in every carton he sold-in case some broke along the way-so that no one ever felt he hadn’t been completely honest with them. I want him to see that our grandmas have loved on him every chance they got, and I want him to read the story of Grandpa Francis’ surprise proposal to Grandma Ila-and how she said yes and they packed their bags to catch the train to Iowa that same night.

I’m starting by collecting what I already have, writing down what I remember, and doing some quick editing to make it all kid-friendly. I’m finding pictures and scheduling interviews-and taking pictures of my baby with our grandparents. I don’t want it to be long or intensive-I want it to be something that he’ll be interested in when he’s little-not when he’s in his mid-40s.

This could make a great Christmas gift (not that I’ll have it done by then-that’s purely hypothetical). With older kids, it could be a fun thing to do together-have them do the interviews and find the stories they want to include in their own special edition of Family Tales.

I’ll keep you posted on how it turns out.

 

Natalie