What to write in a memory book

• One at a time, not all at once. A single answer a week builds a book; an ambitious Sunday afternoon builds a guilt trip.
• Say it out loud. If typing feels like homework, record it as a voice note and let it be transcribed — you'll say more, and sound like yourself.
• Quote them exactly. The mispronunciation, the wrong grammar, the non-sequitur. Nobody wants the corrected version in twenty years.
• Let grandparents, aunts, uncles and trusted friends answer too. Each person brings a different view — a weekend visit, a shared hobby, or the little ritual only they have with the child.
• Date everything. A memory without a date is an anecdote; with a date it becomes history.

The details that vanish fastest: the first weeks, the first words, the temperament that was there from the start.

The years of invented games, relentless questions, and the first real friendships.

Interests start hardening into identity. Capture what they're inside of right now.

They become more private. The questions that work stop being about achievements.

Change is fast and they won't remember it later. Ask, don't interrogate.

The last years before they leave. Worth writing down while they're still in the house.

Every child gets six of these for their age year. Once a question has been answered it never comes back, so the bank never runs dry and you're never repeating yourself. When you put a keepsake together, the answered questions can be pulled in as headings with your memory underneath — which is what turns a pile of notes into something a person actually reads.

Questions are chosen from the child's age on the day, and the whole bank runs from birth to sixteen. See baby memory book for how to use them in year one, and keepsakes for what the answers become at the end of the year.