just another one for the books

awhile ago i bought a baby book so i could physically record all of milo's milestones, put in pictures, etc.... i've also thought of simply someday printing this blog out for him and binding it (or getting it bound at kinko's, or something like that...)

i still have the receipt in the book, though, just in case i change my mind and decide to return it. (at least i hope i've kept the receipt...)

the thing is, i think about it, and in the end, it's just a book, with pictures. i look at all our stuff, and i think, why do we hold on to this stuff? memories, i suppose. no one wants to be forgotten. but it seems very few people are remembered forever, and even within families, you could find an old photograph of someone (old as in, before digital cameras.... will milo even have a concept of film strips when he's older?), and it will probably be fun to look at for a minute or two, to feel the stiff paper, remember the warm sepia tones of pre-color photography, study the details contained within that tiny piece of paper: the expressions on their faces, the dated clothing and hair styles, the objects they chose to be photographed with...

now we live in the digital age, and everyone's a photographer, and we can all have our pictures taken, and no one will ever be forgotten, right? except that even when we find that photograph from way back when, and even if we could identify that in said photo is great aunt sally on my mother's father's cousin's wife's nephew's side (you get the idea...), i still didn't know her, nor do i know anything about her, and while i could probably find her birth and death records, whom she married (if she married), how many children she had, etc. etc., i still have no idea what kind of person she was. if she was kind, or impatient. if she sought out the best in other people or was cynical of everyone. if she wore her hair that way because her husband liked it, or because she liked it.

all this to say, milo is 7 months to the day, and he's cutting his first tooth. i can feel it. and see it. it's the bottom front tooth, i think a little to his right, but it's hard to tell. it feels sharp, and i can't imagine how it hurts, but i'm sure it does. overall, he's still a really happy baby, and while in the grand scheme of things, 10 generations from now, no one will really care that on may 9, 2011 my son milo was 7 months old and was cutting his first tooth, i figured i should still make note of it, just in case i decide to keep that baby book after all.