Notes & Nap times

I get it. Spending five years on something can feel like a huge undertaking especially since motherhood makes you feel like you’re constantly running out of time. The last thing you need is another thing to occupy your mind.
In fact, I didn’t start on my 5-year journal until 5 months postpartum, when some of the early months’ chaos had already subsided and I was able to think clearly and refocus.

This was not part of my plan. I had baby books, photo albums, creative journalling spreads all lined up, but a 5-year journal seemed out of the question during that time. It wasn’t until I flipped through my very first journal when I realized that this was something I needed to start again.

My first 5-year journal was *kind of* a failure because I barely filled it up but when I did, it gave me such a exhilarating insight on what was happening in my life. It felt so good to read about how far I’ve come in those five years. Being able to look back can really make you appreciate how much you’ve grown as a person, how many blessings actually came into your life even if they didn’t feel like blessings then.

I realized that this moment was it. I was missing so much. The small quiet things that we easily let slip through the cracks are actually the things we look back at fondly the most: your favorite outfits on him, the way his hair grew, his reactions to the world around him.

I decided I wanted all of it. I wanted every tiny, minuscule moment logged and stored into safe keeping. Something to remember my journey as a first time mom, as well as remembering my first years with my little one. My only regret was not starting this as soon as I got pregnant cause I personally believe that that’s when being a mom really starts. So, with some luck I was able to hunt down a 2024 Hobonichi 5-year journal (I got pregnant and gave birth last year) and I started where I could, and caught up when I can.

(NOTE: For privacy reasons, I will not be showing my actual entries and photos)

How I Use My Hobonichi Journal
Blank pages are always the biggest hurdles to starting any journal which is why I wanted to share how use mine. Now that I have a clear purpose other than just writing everyday, it became easier to think of ways to use and maximize my journal

Getting Started

The greatest thing about choosing journaling as a hobby is that you can keep it as inexpensive as you want it to be. Just a good journal and a good pen can get you started an a lifelong journey. Here are a few of my favorite things to use for my journal.

THE ESSENTIALS: Your journal and a good pen with archival ink

NICE-TO-HAVES: A good glue stick/tape, markers/highlighters to add color, stickers and washi tapes.

IF YOU CAN SPLURGE: A good photo printer

The Yearly Calendar Pages

Most ignore the first few pages where a year’s worth of dates are crammed into grid spaces. Upon first glance, there really isn’t much to contribute on your end and it’s always left untouched or unmarked. Luckily for you, time is now your most precious gift. As a new mom it surprised me how much more hyperaware of time I had gotten. Before, I used to look forward to year-ends and new beginnings but now my new year starts with every single month. It overwhelmed me how quickly my baby was growing and changing and what better way to mark those monthly changes by using this calendar spread to document those changes. Whenever the month ends, I would print out his photo as a time stamp of what he looked like that month.

The Journal Entries

When I started this journal I already decided that I was writing this for my son which meant I intentionally filtered out some contents. For example, I would keep my focus on just documenting our lives together, our experiences as a first time mother and child. I saved all the negative postpartum spiraling for my other journals for my therapist to deal with (ha!)

I formatted all of my entries as “Dear [insert son’s name] and I would tell him what he did that day and life lessons I want to tell him. It is such good journaling exercise because it makes you feel like you are speaking to your child and not just into an empty blank page. The vision is that in 5 years, your child will have a collection of 1,825 (not including leap years) “letters” from their mom. (This is the same concept as sending an email to your child everyday for them to read in the future)

On the right hand side, I would paste 1-2 photos of what my baby was doing that day and just like the journal entries, in five years you would be able to have an amazing look back at how far the both of you have come.

The Year Recap Pages

I decided to use these pages as my son’s birthday spreads. What better way to commemorate the year than by his biggest milestone: his birthdays. Bonus feature is that there is a bookmarks portion at the bottom which is a great way to jot a few bullet points of your most memorable and significant dates during the year.

Gifts Pages

Hobonichi only gives you two pages for gift lists and knowing how enthusiastic people are about giving kids gifts, it is nearly impossible to list most of them in the space provided. Which is why I decided to use this space to track the monetary gifts my son received. I would log the event (baptism, birthdays, christmas) and then place how much he was able to receive in total.

When I became a parent, I decided I didn’t want to be like my parents and keep the money to myself. Those were gifts extended to him and it would only be fair that he should have it when the time comes. I’ve been diligently keeping all his money under his name, in his account, and in that way he won’t start off with absolutely nothing.

Contact & Address Pages

It took me a while to find a way to repurpose these pages but I realized this a really good space to to list down important people in my son’s life. His aunts, uncles, grandparents, godparents and family friends—the ones he can absolutely count on when I or his dad aren’t there to help him.

For this, I just included their names (their searchable names), their contact numbers and a 1×1 photo to put a face to them. This will become a great resource for him to learn about his “village”.

Lists Page

This was a bit of a challenge to repurpose to fit the overall vision of this journal. On the left-hand lists page I decided to make use the four sections as the four different toddler years. Then for every year, I would list the biggest goals that I need to accomplish for my son for that year. For example at age 2, I should be preparing to him for playschool, or by 3 I need to get him started on some lessons, sports or activities, etc.

I found this to be such a great tool to focus on the most important things. As a mom, I’m learning that it’s so easy to fall into a guilt trap when you fail to do the number of things society says we should be accomplishing. But when I started doing this list it allowed me to strip away all the extra noise and focus on what truly adds value to his life.

The right-hand side of the lists pages is actually just a list of all things that you like: your favorite book, movie, song. I didn’t really feel like this was useful for the purpose of this journal so I just decided to leave this page be and use it as a swatch page for all the pens and materials I would be using.

Personal Information Page

The Hobonichi 5-year journal ends with the personal information page which is basically just the bio data of the journaler. However, I decided to use this page to track my son’s bio data instead, especially to store and note his first email (which was one of the first things I secured for him). Plus I can place his first ever school ID photo there once he starts going to preschool (or his first ever passport photo).

What I Learned Doing This:

Motherhood is such a lonely endeavor. Yes, you will have your husband, your parents, your siblings and your friends around you but even in such a large crowd of people there is still an emptiness that you can never escape. It’s such a unique experience that no two can never be alike, which only means that no one will ever really understand how you’re feeling, no one will ever really relate to your problems, worries and joys. Not even your own mother will have experienced motherhood the same as you have.

I had so many thoughts, so many emotions, and so many things I wanted to talk about but I found that not everyone will want to listen—not because they don’t want to, but because they too have struggles that preoccupy their lives.

“Paper has more patience than people” (Anne Franke)

Anne Franke once said that “paper has more patience than people” which is why this has become one of my favorite ways to journal and keep sane during motherhood. I started this journal because I wanted to “remember it all” but along the way, I found a bigger value and bigger purpose for it.

Being able to talk endlessly “to my son” about my son allowed me to satisfy that part of me that wanted to endlessly share stories about him to someone. Suddenly, my five-year journal became a dear friend, a steadfast companion who knows my motherhood so intimately and if you ever start one, I hope yours becomes one too.