Disclosure: I received this book to review. The post contains affiliate links; the opinions shared here are 100% mine.
I want to be that mom who keeps everything. Movie ticket stubs, a lock of hair, and all the baby pictures set up in chronological order sounds like the perfect box to pull out when the kids grow up. Alas, that’s not me. When I do save stuff, it’s in more of a hoarding fashion. I stuff items in boxes with no rhyme or reason, then waste a whole spring break going through it all in 5 years. When it comes to weekend planning, our family tends to busy up the days with errands to run. We spend Saturday trying to catch a breath from the previous week, then spend Sunday trying to prepare for the upcoming week. Our family’s special moments come in the mundane, ordinary ways like blowing bubbles in the yard or riding bikes around the cul-de-sac.
In the book 940 Saturdays, it’s hard not to think that 940 weekends will simultaneously go by too fast and yet seem like all the time in the world. That’s the amount of time we have with our kids until they turn 18 years old. You could start out writing in the book then passing it on to your kids when they’re old enough to fill it out on their own. You could also make it into a family tradition; reflecting on the day before starting anew could be kind of fun. Being over halfway through those Saturdays with one of my kids makes me scramble to make every moment meaningful. The book means well, but it’s truthfully a bit overwhelming. It is several inches thick and not very easy to hold due to the sheer number of pages. Also, it’s completely a journaling book. If you tried to add pictures or newspaper clippings, you’d make it so thick that it wouldn’t close.
I’d love to see this type of book shaved down to a year’s worth of Saturdays and a little box in the middle (Shawshank Redemption style) that could hold little momentos. The ideas presented in the companion pamphlet are simple yet inspirational. If you tend to let the day go by without a significant moment of togetherness, this might be the book for you. In our family, though, I fear that it will sit on the shelf because I hate to mar the pages with my three entries. That’s about how long I’ll keep up with recording our errand-running.
940 days doesn’t seem like a long amount of time. But when you put it into the perspective of one Saturday a week and it turns into 18 years, it seems like such a little amount of time.
We, too, find that it is more of the little things and the time we spend together that we tend to remember more.
940 Saturdays go by too quickly! I wish I could have more…
What an interesting book idea and great keepsake! We want to keep and remember everything. It’s not possible, but every thing we do write down is a way to preserve it.