Norman Mailer’s mom saved everything: according to the New York Times print edition, Mrs. M “relentlessly squirreled away his notebooks, family photographs…and even his dogs’ identification tags.” The celebrated writer has just sold his collected papers to the University of Texas for $2.5 million.

If Aitch ever becomes famous, Husband and I will have missed out on a significant money-making opportunity. We have already started pitching his pre-school papers.

I realize that, as a mother, this puts me on par with Medea, but I just can’t rouse myself for the effort to organize, catalog and store the truckloads of construction-paper arts and crafts that are being sent home with Aitch on a daily basis. I am a big Flylady fan, and the one principle that has really struck a nerve with me is “declutter every day.” Not that I follow the rest of Flylady to the letter; I have my daily routines, but I have always, even in my darkest, brokest days, left the heavy cleaning to someone else. (One exception: When I was in the Peace Corps, it would have been unseemly for a volunteer to hire a domestic worker. You can jump to here to view the state of my toilets and see how that worked out for me.)

Anyway, I thought Husband, a distinctly unsentimental type, was on board with the whole decluttering thing, but after discussing the Mailer article he surprised me by saying, “Well, of course, when he starts doing crafts for real in school, then we’ll save them.”

“What do you mean, ‘for real’?”

“When he knows what he’s doing. Right now the teachers do most of it, and he spreads a little glue. He doesn’t even know what’s going on. When he creates something purposefully and takes pride in it, then we’ll save it.”

I have noticed this difference in our thinking before. Husband often talks of Aitch as though there is a magic point upcoming in his life where he will change from a baby into a fully sentient being. He often looks forward to the day when Aitch will “really be able to hold a conversation” or “will be able to do fun things.” I think of Aitch’s development as more of a continuum. While I look forward to the day when we can hold different kinds of talks with Aitch, and do different activities with him, I think I will miss the baby discourse and play we engage in now. Consequently I don’t see much difference, intent-wise, between a paper kite he glues in play school, a diorama he makes in elementary school, or a full-scale model of the Parthenon he does in high school — but it doesn’t mean I’m going to clutter up my house with it.

Husband noted that practically the only souvenirs he has of his own childhood are a few school pictures and Dungeons and Dragons paraphernalia. He wishes he had more of his school papers. Husband was number five of seven, however, and Aitch is the first child to be assimilated into our collective, so his life is much better documented. He has a video baby book, this blog, and millions of bytes of photos.

Perhaps electronic storage is the answer. It’s cheap and compact. I’ll start scanning all his play school progress notes and art projects. The University of Texas will appreciate it some day.