Parenthood Listography: It’s a baby book, it’s a parenting keepsake journal, and it’s hilarious

Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt guilt–even a little–over those unfinished baby book pages, incomplete prompts and photo spaces that really, you swear you meant to put a photo in…one day…

Yeah, well, me too. Which is why I think I may have found the best book ever for parents. Especially because your kids don’t have to be babies for you to ue it.

Parenthood Listography: My Kid In Lists is just that. Lisa Nolan has created an absolutely wonderful solution for parents who want to remember stuff, but can’t always remember to remember.

Each page has prompts from pregnancy through childhood, that go beyond the average name/time of birth/weight stuff–althought that’s in there too. It starts wtih lists of names you considered, things happening in the world when the baby was born (Mr. Google can help with that one) and advice you were given (i.e. don’t pick the baby up by its head); along more introspective prompts like how life changed post-baby, or traits you hope to have as a parent.

My favorite of all might be the list of changes you hope the world makes in your child’s lifetime.

Things get more fun the further you go, with lists of parenting ideas you tried, embarrassing moments, your kid’s biggest tantrums, and a list of things he destroyed. (Feel free to use extra pages for that one, mamas.). Each spread comes perfectly to life with the hip, humorous, often ironic illustrations from Kyle Pierce. For example, next to a list of costumes and cute outfits, there’s a drawing of a kid wearing an Andy Warhol wig and glasses, popping out of a Campbell’s soup can. Or bringing to life the list of real and imaginary friends, we meet Jose, a little dinosaur stepping out of a LEGO house.

Also? All the parents and kids depicted are not White. Thanks for that, Kyle, on behalf of a whole lot of families.

In all, this journal strikes the exact perfect balance between sentimental keepsake and reminder that parenting can be a whole lot of chaos, panic, and fun too. And hopefully, when you hand this over to your then grown kiddo one day, he’ll feel all of the above.

Let’s just say even though I have a personal blog, and a lot of these things are already documented, I still want to dig into this book and fill it out. And that’s saying something. –Liz

Find Parenthood Listography: My Kid In Lists by Lisa Nolan and Kyle Pierce from our affiliate Amazon, or at your local bookseller.