“Mom, where are the rest of my books?”

My poor son.

My poor forgotten son.

Sigh.

Last night, my daughter had the sudden urgency to look through the scrapbooks I had made for her. Birth-2nd grade. (Note: she’s now in 7th. Her books, however, stop in June of 2009.)

My son, while enjoying his sister’s books, kept looking for photos of himself as we strolled down her Memory Lane. He didn’t show up until she was four. So, truly, there wasn’t much of him to see.

I do have a book of his first year. So, I enthusiastically whipped it out.

“Yes, I’ve seen this one. Where are the rest?”

Sheepishly. “Um, I have some pages done for your second year, also . . .”

He turns 9 tomorrow.

Here’s the truth. When I was consistently scrapbooking with a group of ladies on a Friday night once a month – with dinner beforehand, long tables set up, tools, gadgets, and supplies on hand to borrow or purchase, the conversation flowing . . . I was ON TOP OF IT.

I then moved, and never found that community. Yes, I could make online photo books of their lives, but I truly enjoyed the process of creating with my hands: designing formats, choosing papers, and stickers, and writing personal sentiments for them. I liked that my children would have books made by ME. They would not be perfect. Or always polished. I just haven’t found a space in my house, nor the time, honestly, to continue scrapbooking faithfully. I totally enjoyed that the scrapbooking events I attended were hosted by someone else who set up and cleaned up after just around 6 hours of hard, yet fun, work.

Last night, however, I felt awful. I still feel awful.

I apologized up and down to my boy.

And, as he usually does, cause he’s such a love, he gave me a hug and grace.

“Mommy, it’s really ok! Really!” (Quickly followed up by asking if I had more pictures of him – which I DO! Many . . . unorganized. The iPhone has been a thorn in my organizing side.)

I am actually considering hiring someone on Elance, to tap into my system, and organize all my photos.

No joke. While I won’t hire someone to make my scrapbooks, I will delegate someone to do that remote system capture thing, and play around in my files to organize them all.

THAT I would pay for.

Are you a scrapbooker? Or a drop-out like me? And fess up. Are your digital photos completely organized in files by year, month, and event? (If they are, good on you. I’m envious!)