Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Up the Creek Without My Camera!


When my first child was born, I vowed to take a picture of her every day for the first year of her life. I think I only missed two or three days and that’s not bad considering at least one of those days was on video. Everyone scolded me about it saying “You’ll never be able to do that for your second child.” Since it took eight years for the first to come along, I wasn’t going to make decisions based on equity for each child. Years of unsuccessful fertility treatments taught me to constantly ask myself “What if there is never a second child?” I committed to the picture idea knowing that it was a one-time thing and I was okay with that. We put together a really cool website for her – complete with crib webcam - and updated the pictures when I could (or when I would send enough pictures to MIL to do it.) If a second child came along, I would just be grateful and would do my best to take pictures when I could.

My oldest is now 4 (soon to be 5) and the youngest just turned 3. I was obviously blessed with a second… Although I don’t get a picture a day, when submitting surveys that request information about how often I take pictures, I can comfortably check the box “50 or more per month.” These days, I tend to carry my camera with me when we’re heading someplace new, exciting or noteworthy. For example, when my daughter started gymnastics, I took it with to get a few pictures of her first day. They didn’t turn out too hot because the parents were all outside the room looking through a window… but I got pictures none-the-less!

We try to expose the kids to a lot of different activities. They are starting swim lessons next week. Today was my 3-year old's last day of gymnastics; I even skipped my workout to be able to watch her. DH is working on a project that I thought he would need the camera for, so I didn’t bring it along. She’s only three and she’ll probably rotate back to gymnastics after the swim lessons end in a few months since she’s really too small for much else. I felt completely lost but figured I would get by. But wait! There were three other moms there watching their kids on the last day.
♫"One of these things is not like the others, ♪ one of these things just doesn’t belong."♫
I was the only mom there without a camera! There were three digital cameras and one video camera between the three of them. Needless to say, I inherited one part-time to help take some pictures while the video was rolling. I handed each of them my email and asked if they could send me photos that my daughter might show up in. Shortly after arriving home from the gym, I found two emails in my mailbox containing eight pictures of my daughter. Only one was a group picture, the rest were photographs of her by herself doing somersaults or whatever. Those were all from Meg, one of the other moms. She had taken pictures specifically for me because I didn’t have my camera. I know the other two took single shots of my daughter also because they told me. It's great to know people who are so considerate!

They set a great example for me today. With all the places I have my camera, I guess I need to make a better effort to capture some memories for the moms who don’t bring theirs along.

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