Tokens and Momentos
By Carrie Ellis

Personal tokens are important to me! :) I'm a very sentimental person. I like to have things to look at that remind me of memories and feelings. I want to give those same sorts of things to my son so that he has the same kind of joy at his fingertips. Here are some things that my son and I share that serve as momentos.

Photo Box
When my son and I parted for the first time, I had fully intended that he would be going with me.. so in that interest, I created a photo box for him. I bought the box.. a cardboard photo box with a lid and I sat him down on the floor with newspaper and paint and let him go with it. He painted some brilliant artwork on that box! :)
Then we filled it with photos of all of this family members. He was so young that I mounted them on a foam background and laminated the fronts so that he could handle them with his toddler fingers and not worry about messing them up permanently.
The box finally wore out so for his 4th birthday, I bought him another one and let him paint it. He took that one back to his dad's house with him filled with all of his precious pictures and we keep the old one at my house.

Mommy's Shirt
I have to acutally give his dad credit for this one. The first time my son came to stay with me, his dad gave him one of his shirts to snuggle. So when I sent him back to his dad's, one of my shirts went with him. I wore it to bed the night before so it would 'smell like mommy'. I remember how comforting it was to smell my mommy when I was younger. Now he has something with him that he can cuddle with that reminds him of mommy!