What's in a Lifebook...

I’ve had a couple of people ask me about what a Lifebook is so I thought I would go into further detail here.
I will start by saying that my kids love their Lifebooks- and I can already tell at their young ages how much they mean to them. I am sure as they get older that will even become more so.

A Lifebook for an adopted child is like their baby book/scrapbook. You know the kind you can purchase that sort of have those “fill in the blank” questions, for example “Your first smile was on _________.” Or “You took your first step on __________.”
The thing is, with an adopted child (as much as you wish you had been) often times you were not there to see their ‘first smile’ or see them take their first step. So, those questions left blank often leave them with even more unanswered questions.
With Mya – she came home from Guatemala to us at age 4. I have never seen a picture of her as an infant and we have little information about the first 3 years of her life. Therefore, a Lifebook helps empower her to know as much of her past as we can give her- which I truly believes helps raise healthy, well adjusted, secure kids.

The greatest thing about a Lifebook is you can’t go wrong. Each one is unique- just like your child. You can make it as fancy as you want or as plain as you want. You can include any details you have- without concentrating on the ones you don't know. In our kids Lifebooks we include things like pictures of the orphanage, the beds they slept in there, the friends they had and the caregivers they loved. As in Kaden’s case- this includes his foster parents and foster siblings and the pictures his amazing foster mother took of him before we knew him. The girls Lifebooks have history of Guatemala, poems, quotes and pictures of our trips there. I also journal throughout it all, talking about the foods she tried for the first time, her first words in English, etc. There are maps of Guatemala that show the town they were born. There are copies of their passport and flight tickets home. There is any history we have on their birth families- including sibling information. I do have one picture of Aleigha with her birthmom and several with Mya and her birthmom and birth grandmother (since I had the opportunity to meet them on her pick up trip). I journal things her mother told me the day we met. Basically, any information I have to help fill that blank- help answer the unknowns- is what I do. I journal my feelings on the day I first saw their face, first held them in my arms. I tell them how we prayed for them and the many ways God made it obvious they were to be our children. I truly feel that a Lifebook is one of the greatest gifts you can give to your adopted child.

Here are some pictures of Aleigha and her Lifebook. :0)