{confessions of tillyless tuesdays}

I was just going to show you the sweet little baby head with its sweet little baby mullet and the progress on tilly tuesdays: volume II, but then I decided I should tell you the truth. The truth is, I haven't consciously taken a photo of Tilly on a Tuesday for sixteen weeks. There have been plenty of photos, and there have been the usual amount of Tuesdays, but if they've occurred together, it's been purely by chance.

If you remember, tilly tuesdays: volume one was a handmade book of photographs, taken each Tuesday of Tilly's first year. Ah, younger Astrid, and her need for perfection. Once, late on a Tuesday evening, she did the unthinkable -- the most taboo act of motherhood -- she woke a baby just for an authentic Tuesday photo. (Yes, I can hear your collective gasp, echoing around the world... don't worry, I've learnt my lesson.)

But earlier today, wanting to read an email without being asked to see "beh-bee? beh-bee?" (and then screamed at when the email had no baby in it), I pulled down volume one. Fifty-two weeks of beh-bee, in handy sit-on-the-floor format. Peace. And then I realised --  today is Tuesday, and I hadn't yet taken a photo. I didn't take a photo last Tuesday, the Tuesday before, or any of the fourteen great-great-grand-Tuesdays that came before that.

Luckily, present-day Astrid cares very much less about perfection. "Ah, close enough," was my mantra of the afternoon photo sorting, along with "If I tell myself enough that the dates are accurate, I won't know the difference." Sorry, future Astrid, it doesn't sound like I've got much faith in your memory. At least I've labelled the book for you so you'll know which child is in the photos. You're welcome.

Okay, enough words. You're here for the photos, I know.

While the first volume was full of milestones like Tilly smiling or eating food for the first time, this year the firsts are of a rather different nature. Two months ago: the first time she sailed around a miniature version of the world in a Lego boat. A month ago: the first time she picked up a ladybird. A week ago: the first time she really played with a friend, rather than just trying to hit him on the head with toys (sorry, Ewan). 

And that is why I have to keep it up -- so that all these photos don't fade into the jumble of "when she was little," but get to tell their stories and take their place in this weekly history of a person. Well, that, and I love the thought of teenage Tilly going to the photobooth each week to take her picture, twenty-year-old Tilly taking blurry self-portraits on a 'vintage' iPhone, eighty-year-old Tilly sleeping in a room full of filing cabinets (a la Bill Cunningham) filled totally with Tuesday photos... 

...let's see, 80 years x 52 weeks = 4160 photos. Okay, she'd probably just have them on a CD. 

{matilda}

While back in England last month, I came face to face with twenty-something years of my stored stuff. A little trip down Sentimental Lane, yes, but knowing that whatever I saved, I'd have to carry in my suitcase and drag half way around the world, I was ruthless. Goodbye, ugly Beanie Babies (yes, you, Millennium bear, you purple monster). So long, high-school yearbooks, and all your teenage stress. Farewell, and sorry, plastic animals that I chewed legs off of.

But one thing that definitely made the suitcase, packed safely beneath two hundred Duplo blocks and three dozen slightly mangy Sylvanian Families, was a book. My favourite book. A book I've read at least twenty times, often in a single sitting. A book I was given just before my seventh birthday, (ta, Jenni) and which has proved to be rather important in our lives...

Matilda. This is what our Matilda, our fifteen-month-old Tilly-Bear, is named after. I loved the idea of infusing her with a bit of magic. Yes, we might have long afternoons of sitting on the bed trying to move pencils with our eyes, but who knows, perhaps she'll be able to.

And can you believe, it wasn't until two years ago, when I was telling my grandma about my favourite names for girls, that she mentioned her mother, my great-grandmother, was also called Matilda? Cha-ching, bonus family connection! It was meant to be.

Reading the book again, I'm finding lines that are full of the brilliance of Matilda. Wouldn't that be a lovely reminder of her namesake -- a quote from the book, displayed somehow in her room. It's not all boastful parenty if Roald Dahl said it, right? And, perhaps, a bonus photo of her great-great grandmother on the wall too, just for total Matildination.