Shannon Phillips

When I was a girl, my dad used to make little books for me. They weren’t fancy, just sheets of legal paper folded over, with photos stapled in. But Dad would make up funny stories around the photographs, and I loved those books. I still have them!

I wanted to make a little book like that for Robin and Davy, to help them prepare for Sol’s arrival. I thought if I started with a bound blank book it would have a better chance of withstanding life in a three-boy household, so I shopped around online, and ended up ordering this:

Which is the point at which I became aware that I was actually making a scrapbook!

It’s funny because my friend Wendy is a great scrap-booker (scrapper?) and I’ve always admired her fun, colorful books, but never particularly had the urge to make one myself. It was only by approaching the project as a storybook rather than a scrapbook that I found myself dipping a toe into those waters! It was a lot of fun though, and both the boys are super excited about their “brother book,” as they call it. Davy had me read it to him three times this morning.

Here is the story I wrote around the pictures:

Robin and Davy are brothers.

Robin is the big brother. He was born first.

When Robin was a baby he lived with Mommy and Daddy in San Francisco.

He liked to go to the park. But he had no one to play with.

One day Mommy said, “I have a new baby in my tummy!” Daddy said, “Yay! Let’s move to Oakland.”

When the baby came out of Mommy, we named him Davy. Robin helped Mommy and Daddy take care of him.

Now Robin had a little brother to play with.

Davy grew quickly. Soon he could walk and talk.

He wasn’t a baby any more. He was a little boy!

Robin and Davy did lots of things together.

They helped around the house.

They went to the Oakland zoo with Nanita and Markie.

They even went to school together. Robin taught Davy how to eat his lunch at the table.

They liked to watch movies on the couch.

At Hallowe’en they went trick or treating together.

Sometimes they went to sleep together.

One day Mommy said, “I have a new baby in my tummy!” Daddy said, “That’s not a baby, that’s a puppy.”

“That is Thora and she is our puppy,” said Davy.

Mommy said, “Yes, but there is also a baby. I need Robin and Davy to help me take care of the baby when it comes out!”

Robin remembered when Davy was a baby. “Babies are a lot of work,” said Robin.

“That’s true,” said Mommy. “They are a lot of work. That is why I will need help taking care of the baby.”

“Robin and Davy will be good helpers,” said Daddy. “Because they are such good brothers.”

The End