I have over 22,000 photos stored on my computer. And those are just the shots from my digital camera. In a closet, I have 10 more storage containers, each larger than a shoe box, that I have pictures in that were developed from film. Remember the good old days? I much prefer the digital storage on my computer. It doesn’t take up any space in a closet that I desperately need in order to store all of those rolled-up oriental rugs that I am over. I’m thinking of listing those on Craig’s List. But my evolving design aesthetic? That’s another story. Back to the photos…

The problem then becomes what do I do with all of the pictures on my computer? Aside from the random lonely night when I find myself watching a slideshow of one of the girl’s births and weeping quietly for the end of my baby-making days, they just sit there in one enormous file that I am certain is slowing down my Mac to a pace that it unbearable for someone like myself, with the patience of the world’s Most Impatient Human Being. Periodically, we (and when I say “we,” I really mean “my dutiful husband”) upload them to Snapfish and then send out hard copies to grandparents, order sets for ourselves to update frames around the house. Once in a while, I even make one of their little flip-books so that the Grandmothers have portable bragging rights. (Although I’m mad at Snapfish because they won’t let me make a flip-book on my Mac. I have to use my husband’s PC. Why?)

But the piece de resistance? Has to be these “photo albums.” We design them at My Publisher. (First book: free! ) I don’t know what else to call them, other than a photo album, but they are anything but. Yes, technically these are books filled with pictures. But you don’t just pick one up at Walgreen’s, only to take it home, throw it in a closet, completely forget that it’s there and oops! That’s one more project that won’t get done. These books are special. Linen covers. Custom layouts. You can add copy, so that your photo album turns into a story. Your story. We have had many of these books made over the years. The first one was a gift from my husband to myself, detailing our time in Athens, Greece, during the last summer Olympics. It’s where Pea was conceived and while Greece was not my favorite international travel destination while I was actually there, coming home and finding out shortly thereafter that I was pregnant? Well, naturally that made it the best trip ever. And I can’t wait to get back there. With our girls. As a family. It’s where we became a family. Ah, yes. Best. Trip. EVER.

The next in the series of books chronicled Pea’s first 40 days with us. From the hospital, through her birth and then home. As a family. It’s a gorgeous book, and we ended up ordering a couple of extra copies to give to the grandparents. And then after that, we did one that celebrated Pea’s first year of life. And then, along came Coco. And we did one of the new sisters.

They may seem a little pricy, but I think they are so worth it. First of all, it’s so much easier than printing out dozens of photos and placing them all in photo albums. And these are coffee table books. We leave ours out, all of the time, for people to peruse. Pea adores looking through each one, especially the one from Greece (it’s full of all of the stray dogs I was threatening to bring home with us) and the one that shows her debut as Big Sister. And they make fantastic gifts. In fact, if we let too long of a time elapse in between new “editions,” the grandmothers start circling like sharks.

And since my girls are still so little, I seem to be having a really difficult time parting with anything. Pea, who outgrew her clothes at the speed of light, left mounds and mounds of beautiful baby items in her wake. And I couldn’t bear to part with them. Until my husband asked, “what’s in these huge black contractor bags stacked all over the place?” So, I weeded through it. And held things to my face, smelled the baby smell, wiped away some tears, and then neatly folded them to be sent to Goodwill. Although the special pieces, the monogrammed pieces, the hand-knit pieces, those were placed into a large plastic tub. To keep. And so began the collection of items chronicling the early years of our girls. And now, each girl has her own box. The name tag that was in their hospital bassinets? Into the box. Baby blankets knit by hand and sent to us from a distant cousin on the coast of Maine? Into the box. A funny tee-shirt my husband designed for me that sums up in one little image the voraciousness of Pea’s nursing habits early on? Into the box. Coco’s first hair brush? It’s in there. If it’s precious, if it is filled to the brim with memories, if it’s something I think that either girl would like to have someday, to pass on to her own child, it’s in there. And while I know that plastic isn’t the most luxurious storage option, I needed to know that these things were safe. From water, mold, cold air, humidity. Because the box of journals that I’d written in religiously since I was 8? They were in a cardboard box in our garage in Westchester County, New York for just one year. And in that short year? They were completely destroyed and had to go. And while I made comments at the time about how it was so freeing to release those diaries and journals, it was not. It was devastating. Freeing would have been if it had been by choice. No, this was letting a part of myself go that I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to. So, plastic it is. And they remained out in the garage in Fort Worth. And we had floods. And insane humidity. And yet everything in those boxes, all of the contents, are clean and still smell like baby powder and Dreft.

As for the birthday cards? Well, they’re in there, too. I haven’t figured out what to do with them yet. But I have a feeling that as each girl turns 16, those cards will make their way into a collage that will be hung at the girls’ respective birthday celebrations. And it will probably be titled something like, “The Best 16 (and then 18) Years of My Life…”