The Book of Baby Mine

The worn brown cover of my baby book bears the title The Book of Baby Mine. Inside, in my mother’s careful handwriting, she began recording the story of my life. She wrote my full name, Nancy Jean Watson, followed by the details of my birth at Concord Hospital on December 21, 1952. The information is familiar, but seeing it written in her hand makes it feel immediate and personal.

I was the third child born to my parents. I had a brother only a year older than me, and another brother would arrive a year after I did. My mother was raising a rapidly growing family while also working full time outside the home. With so many responsibilities competing for her attention, the fact that she opened this book and attempted to preserve the events of my early life seems remarkable to me now.

Some spaces in the book were completed and others were left blank. Those empty places do not lessen its meaning. Instead, they reflect the reality of my mother’s life. A life filled with children, work, and the countless daily responsibilities that left little time for carefully maintaining a baby book.

What touches me most is her nearly perfect handwriting across those first pages. Each carefully formed word represents a moment when she stopped everything else and recorded something about me. Long before I could remember my own beginning, my mother began preserving it for me. More than seventy years later, her handwriting remains one of the most meaningful parts of the story.