Keeping a Journal for Your Child

What special tasks are you doing to record your infinite love for your children? In our social media, Pinterest-perfect culture, the ideas are seemingly endless and overwhelming. We often find ourselves discouraged, thinking we're not doing enough to document and fulfill our kids. Or, we are working tirelessly to discover and create memorable ways to love our kids that cause us angst and exhaustion--I am definitely in this camp! Want to know the most meaningful and simple option? Keep a journal for your child. 

​When I was pregnant with my first child, I was totally Pinterest-happy! I searched for creative ways to decorate the nursery, learned how to compose my own newborn photo shoot, registered for essential baby items, and found meaningful ways to parent. As I perused through images galore, I came across one pin entitled,  "Journal of Letters." As a lover of the written word, I was automatically attracted to this image. The post was written by a mother who keeps a journal for each of her children. I immediately saved the pin and went shopping for a journal to keep for our first baby. 

Over the last four years, I have written in our daughter's journal again and again. I write her a letter for each holiday, and on her birthday. There are also times I am moved to write her after watching a sentimental movie or in order to express my delight in her, just because. Over the years, God has blessed our family with two more children. I have a separate journal for all three of our kids and find special joy in recording my love for each of them in this way. 
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I do not have a definite plan regarding when my children will receive their journals. Maybe it will on their graduation day, or possibly at different points in their growing up years when I know they need encouragement. I hope these journals will be a source of love, support, and guidance for my children over their entire lifetime. I envision (and hope!) Adeline, Lincoln, and Isla will often return to the pages of my heart time and time again. I pray that as they read, they are enveloped by my devotion to and belief in each one of them, in a way that is unique to each child God has entrusted to me. 
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One of my friends also writes these type of letters but has chosen to do it through an email account she created for her daughter to open one day. I like this option as her words will never be misplaced or damaged, and will always be available to her child. I am considering transferring all my letters to individual email accounts for each of our children to ensure their delivery.  If I do this, I will still continue to handwrite their entries as I have always appreciated the unexplainable element of thought that is added to a handwritten note.
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As mothers, our heart's desire is that our children know how deeply they are loved. Keeping a journal is a perfect way to illustrate your unending affections. I hope this inspires you to take pen to page and begin this lifelong endeavor in an effort to overflow your child's soul in the place that only a mother can fill. 
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How do you record love for your child? Please share your ideas!