Thursday, December 07, 2006

Writing My Son's Story

I have a tendency to think too big. I’m pretty sure that if I learned to think on a smaller scale, I might actually get things completed in a reasonable time frame. Here’s an example. Before my son came, I went to the craft store and bought everything that I thought I would need to make an adoption story for my son. I bought paper, special scissors, special glue for photos… and I put it all in my craft bag. It’s still in my craft bag.

It’s not that I don’t have enough time (though that is a factor). My problem is that I planned to make my son a book – not just an album, but a book. I wanted the whole story there so that anyone could read it to him and he would understand about his adoption, who all the players were and how special he was. He’s been home with us for two and a half years and I’ve gotten a whole paragraph finished.

At first, I wrote it from my point of view and then I stopped because that didn’t seem right at all. After all, what if my husband was reading him the story or one of his grandparents? Then, I switched to third person narrative and that didn’t sound right at all. It was far too impersonal. I tried rhyme, but that didn’t work either. Poetry is not my thing and it came out sounding like a very twisted Dr. Seuss story. Right now, I think it’s going to be from the point of view of my cat. Yes, I said cat.

I think it’s important to get my son’s story down on paper. The problem is that I figure that he’s going to have kids of his own before I’m done. It’s all my mother’s fault. She had to be a writer and now I think in terms of long literary type books instead of short captions. I have seen lovely memory books that are full of pictures that have cute little captions underneath. They really accomplish the same thing and with a lot less stress.

There are a couple of things that I think people should remember to put in their children's story though:

1. If you know the information, you should make sure you put their birth information (weight, height, etc...).
2. Information about their birthparents
3. The day you met each other for the first time

2 comments:

Cynthia said...

I started working on my son's Lifebook just after his referral. We were fortunate enough to be at a very good friend's home who took pictures of us on the phone with our agency that evening...I love that we have pics of finding out we are parents! The next couple pages talk about us getting all ready for him to come home with pictures of his room and putting the crib together. I also included a few pictures that I put in an album for the foster family. The it goes into meeting him in Korea and his life prior to us. I think those are all important parts of his story too...our excitement about him coming and the adoption process.

Third Mom said...

Wonderful advice - and I know how important this information is to my children. And I think almost any format can work, as long as the key information is captured and saved. Thanks for posting this!