I'm a historian

I got my first diary on my sixth birthday. I still remember it, it was an orange book with a little lock, and padded bind. I didn't use it very often back then, so it actually lasted me for quite a few years and I still have it in a box somewhere.
Since then I have kept a diary, on and off. Sometimes nothing in a couple of years, sometimes every day for years. (For example I'm very happy that I kept a diary of the year I was an Au Pair in Paris - it's quite an exciting read revisiting myself as a teen!)

At the moment, I have now kept a diary (nearly) every day, for the past 13 years. I use the same type of A6 sized calendar every year, that I buy from the Swedish company Ordning&Reda. I only write short statements each day. They help me remember what else was going on that day, or in that period; how I was feeling or what was going on in my life.
I must admit it has become a bit of an obsession, and it disturbs me when I've skipped a day. It feels like I have lost that day, since I haven't made any notes...



When I had Lucas, I started a diary for him as well. I got him a 5-year calendar, with five years on the same page, and has written a little bit every day about what he has been up to. In the back of that calendar, I also made resumés at the end of each month about his development. Some things couldn't get pinpointed to just one day. Everything special that happened got marked in red: first time he smiled, first time he walked, first trip to the cinema etc etc. (Of course, I have also done the same thing for Linnea.)
I hope they will appreciate this when they grow older, or at least when they have kids themselves!



I see myself as the historian of our family, the storyteller. I'm the one that keeps the records of our life in every aspect: I take almost all of the pictures, I scrapbook our memories, I do lists and keep little souvenirs from special occasions - like newspapers from the days the kids were born, the first locks of their hair that got cut off etc.
I keep a folder on my computer with lists of different things, like what the kids got for their 1st birthdays, chronologies of their collection of Christmas tree decorations and so on.
I guess this blog is also a kind of diary, a tool to help me remember. I guess I enjoy writing it so much because it's in my nature to keep track of things, observe and take notes.

As I said, sometimes all this becomes a little bit consuming, but you know what? That's what I do. That's what I'm good at. I'm a historian.