Do you remember having a yearbook?
I’m a bit of a hoarder and still have ALL my yearbooks, including elementary, middle school, high school and college. My favorite by far was a high school yearbook that had a Swatch watch embedded in the cover, that you could pop out and rock on your wrist all while preserving your memories.
I have such fond memories of the day our yearbooks were handed out. It was a fun day.
But the fun was just getting started. I poured over that book over and over again to find friends, a boy I thought was cute, my favorite teacher… you get the idea and hopefully this stirs up a memory for you.
Just yesterday, I stumbled upon my 4-year-old looking at the yearbook from last year. He attended an amazing preschool at our public school as a 3-year-old because he gets special services from our district.
He was giggling and pointing at his friends and his teachers and inspecting every single page. He pointed at his brother’s class and named a few of his friends, found a few pictures that his brother was hiding in and then he came to one of his favorite pages, naming his speech therapist’s name and chuckling, repeating words she taught him.
My 7-year-old hopped on the couch and for about 20 minutes of bliss, where there was no arguing, the boys sat and enjoyed that yearbook. They didn’t talk about masks or about how they had to eat in their classrooms, or even mention the dreaded virus that invaded our country last year; they just sat and steeped in the memories.
I sat and watched them in that sweet moment and reflected on my own school yearbook memories, and smiled.
I’m glad I bought them a yearbook. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to remember the 2020-2021 school year because it was a doozy. Memories are memories, good and bad and fun and challenging, still they are memories.
They will always have those memories and be able to take a peek at the yearbook that is already well worn and tattered from just the three months we’ve had it.
I think I just may have to dig out my old yearbooks and take a trip down memory lane, too.
