Making Memories

I’ve enjoyed fashion for years and, now that I have a little boy, I’m enjoying baby fashion too. I take great delight in dressing le bubs in all sorts of traditional outfits in muted tones of white, beige, grey and blue and, despite his dad mocking his knee socks – with pom-poms – I think NCM looks just gorgeous in his tiny little #OOTDs.

Of course, the trouble with babies is that they grow. Rather quickly. And so, all these gorgeous clothes NCM has last no more than three months at a time, which meant that only two months after he was born, I was wrapping up parcels of baby clothes and sending them off to JoJo Maman Bebe’s From A Mother To Another campaign (whereby they sent clothes to vulnerable babies and children in the UK, Ireland and Lebanon). Since then, I’ve donated a lot of items to various charity shops including Save The Children, but I have kept a few of my favourite pieces which have been packed away. Just in case there’s ever another baby boy in the family, or, if not, just to look at in another twenty years and recall these early days.

Though it feels good to help other babies and children who might need clothes, it also feels really sad that there’s no evidence of my beautiful boy’s tiny newborn clothes around our home. I wasn’t quite sure what to do about this, and then, as if she knew how I was feeling, Sandra from Make Me A Memory Bear got in touch.

Sandra offered to make me a teddy bear out of the tiny baby clothes. Isn’t a that a wonderful idea? She takes around six to eight pieces to make a stuffed animal of your choice (a bear, lion, dog or hippo) as a keepsake. I was tempted by the dog but, as I tend to do when buying baby clothes, I chose the traditional option – a classic bear. I dropped the clothes off to Sandra and just a few days later our bear was ready.

I loved him on first sight. He’s cute as a button and his design features some of my favourite clothes NCM wore as a new baby – it’s so nice to see them again, and each time I see our bear he makes me think of the short time when NCM was a teeny, tiny, curled up newborn. They always say the newborn phase doesn’t last long (as it turns out, it’s true) but no matter what sort of day I’ve had, our memory bear reminds me of that precious time every single day.

With thanks to Make Me A Memory Bear for the gift. Find them on Facebook and Instagram @makemeamemorybear.