Capturing the Magical Moments of Parenting

On Christmas Night, my husband and I were saying our goodbyes to family and preparing to head home, when all of a sudden my seven-month-old daughter smiled up at her grandmother and waved bye-bye for the first time. I did a double-take, and then started squealing, "Did she just wave? She WAVED! Did you see that? I can't believe it!"

 What I didn't do was dig my camera out of the bottom of my purse to capture the moment, or even write down when and where it happened (until now).  I haven't updated her baby book in months.

 New parents eagerly await baby's major milestones. The first smile. The first word. The first step. The first time your baby rolls over, crawls, or stands up on their own (which, for my daughter, will likely be at 2:30 a.m. in her crib, where she is diligently practicing when she should be sleeping.)

 But many of the big and little milestones with our little ones pass us sleep-deprived, multi-tasking parents by (when did she truly giggle for the first time again?). DisneyBaby.com, a new website from ABCNews.com's parent company the Walt Disney Company, wants to change that and to help parents to capture and share those magical moments. The site is built around the moments of baby's day and stages of  baby's life, from decorating the nursery and celebrating the first birthday to bath time, playtime and mealtime.

Parents "talk about the moment of the day that they're in," explained Brooke Chaffin, the senior vice president at Disney Interactive Moms and Family. "We realized it's such a nice organizing principle for everything we do as moms."

 The site's Magical Moments tool allows users to upload and share photos and memories that will be organized and shared across the site and to take inspiration from the experience of other parents in the community.

 "This life stage is so defining. I wake up in the morning as a parent first," said Chaffin, who is the mother of 2-year-old twin boys."You have this great affinity with other people who are in this life stage."

Magical Moments is the "core piece" of the site, she said, adding that video uploading might be available down the road. The goal, she said, is to help parents chronicle "the whole multimedia story of their child."

Chaffin, who writes down her own babies' milestones in a brown notebook, thinks busy parents will embrace "an opportunity to have a digital place to capture their stories."

To that end, she said that the site hopes to create a "closer tether" to Facebook in the future, adding that the  Disney Baby Facebook page is "a really actively engaged community" and has garnered nearly 675,000 likes in just eight months.

In addition to the Magical Moments, the site features a Disney Baby product database for expectant and new parents, from toys to gear to clothes. It also offers checklists such as Registry Items, Diaper Bag Must-Haves and ideas and tips from "Momgineers. 

"We want to really to inspire parents in these moments of the day," Chaffin said.