I secretly emailed my son for 15 years. On his 18th birthday, I finally gave him the password.

The author started emailing her son when he was 3.

Courtesy of the author I created a Gmail account for my oldest son when he was 3.

For 15 years, I emailed big milestones and tiny moments I didn't want to forget.

When he turned 18, I gave him the password to his digital childhood archive.

When my eldest son was a little boy, I did something that felt quietly monumental in the moment and slightly ridiculous — I created a Gmail account in his name.

He was 3 years old.

Far too young to know what email was, let alone care about it.

My BlackBerry (yes, I had a BlackBerry , it was 2010) probably looked more like something he could play games on.

At that stage of life, his interests were vast but often limited to dinosaurs, Duplo, bouncy balls, and snacks.

Lots of snacks.

There was also him asking "why?" approximately 275 times an hour.

But I had the vague sense that childhood moved too quickly and that memories — especially the small ones — had a way of dissolving if you didn't trap them somehow.

I was also pregnant with his twin brothers , so preserving what I could of his "only child" status was important ahead of such a big change.

So I opened the account and wrote him his first email.