Love, Mommy: Writing Love Letters to Your Baby - Book Review

"What was I like as a baby?"

All moms know how their kids' eyes light up when they hear stories about themselves as babies and young children.

All moms also know that when a mother takes the time to record these precious stories in written form, she preserves a mystery and a magic that is impossible to recapture any other way.

Still, even the most well-intentioned of us (myself included) have a hard time following through when we have something we wish to write down, particularly those everyday details that make up our lives. Sometimes we are swept away by the daily tasks of motherhood and sometimes we are simply too deep in the enjoyment of the experience itself to take the time out to write about it just then. Sometimes it all seems too much to do, but more often it's a gentle ebbing away of the time.

In Love, Mommy: Writing Love Letters to Your Baby, Judy Siblin-Librach leads us on a journey that helps us capture the major milestones (the birth story, the first day at school) as well as those that may not immediately come to mind (the first time your child caught a baseball, the way her hugs felt, the first time she went through a car wash).

Siblin-Librach's writing style is elegant, perfectly capturing the depth of emotion that all mothers feel at one point or another. We are in good hands with a natural-born poet and mother who will lead us into creating and recording the lyrics of our own lives.

Part of the beauty of this book is the way Siblin-Librach makes it simple to write these life stories, whether or not you have ever enjoyed the process of writing in the past. The book is equally helpful in bringing back memories you may have thought were gone, just in case your baby has grown.

Siblin-Librach opens each chapter with incisive questions to prompt your writing, followed by sample letters from her own family. These examples can really help you to get an idea of all the different ways you can take a particular letter. The author includes notes to parents about how to write the letter, as well as tips and ideas to keep you inspired in this grand task. This book helps us to record the specific stories and memories, as well as the deeper story: the wisdom, the life lessons and the wishes you have for your child.

Judy Siblin-Librach has written a beautiful and heartfelt book that simplifies the process and that reminds us that it needn't be a big deal to record these memories and to give ourselves and our children the greatest gift. In doing so, she has given a gift to all mothers and all those who will be mothers.