The remembering paper

"I should write about this on my remembering paper," Julia told me today as she was working on an art project after school. I was only half listening, truth be told, but something about the words she used caught my attention. "What's a remembering paper?" I asked.

"It's something I write things down on so I can remember them," she replied. "You know, like if we have Fit To Go or something. I don't know where it went, though. I'll have to start a new one."

I felt my breath catch in my throat for a minute. "That sounds a little like a diary or a journal," I told her. "They're blank books where people write about their thoughts and ideas and experiences so that they can look back and remember them later." Julia nodded. "Yeah, it's just like that," she said.

"Sometimes," I continued, "people write those things on the computer, and then they're called blogs. I do that. I write things down in a blog -- things that you and Evan do and say and things I think about -- so that I can remember them later on. Is that kind of the same thing you're talking about?" She nodded again. "Did someone else teach you about remembering papers?" I asked. "No, it was my idea," she replied.

It's such a simple thing, really. Millions and millions of people write in journals and diaries and blogs ever day. I didn't invent the idea any more than my daughter did, and neither of us are particularly unique in our desire to record the minutiae of our lives for posterity. But the fact that my daughter felt the unprompted urge to journal at the age of 4? This pleases me more than I can say.

Julia watches as I flip open the laptop and start to type. "Mommy, what does that say?"

"I'm writing in my remembering paper about your remembering paper," I reply. "You know, so I won't forget." A big smile spreads over her face. "Huh," she says. Huh indeed.