Recently, the pictures I tend to take of them are quite selfish - destined for posts about my projects on Shape of a Spoon. This has been embarrassingly obvious on occasions when Grandma Christie has come to visit. We begin clicking through pictures on our computer to show her what the kids have been up to, but I'm certain it's like suffering through the quintessential vacation slide show. The pictures are oddly focused on details that were important to me (i.e., a nice side view of the collar of a dress I've made for Junie - oh so interesting!), and escape a grandparent's interest who simply wants a glimpse into her grandkids' lives. The attempts at snapping pictures to showcase my own sewing abilities is, by the way, one of the things I dread most. Refusing to pose for pictures appears to be Junie's preferred method of rebellion. We usually both end up furious at each other.
So I'm trying to take more pictures of them as my kids instead of my clothing models. But then we're back to my first problem - what constitutes a necessarily documented event in their lives?
Olive attends a music class once a week. The official name of this class is Cherubs. I refuse to refer to it as such - I just call it her music class. Olive absolutely loves this class - it's a routine; a weekly event she claims as her own. The entire week revolves around this class. Every morning she asks, "Is it my music class today?", then grumbles if it isn't. Each Sunday as we arrive at church (where the class is held) she says, as if pointing it out for the first time, "This is where my music class is!". I understand her need to feel as though she is in control of some aspects of her 3-year-old life, and I happily bring her to this weekly event and fully participate in cheesy songs with cheesy hand motions and cheesy props (though there are decent songs as well).
But I digress. My point in bringing up her music class is to illustrate how I seem to be a bit out of the loop in the expected pictorial documentation of my children's growing up years. During significant holidays there have been "class parties": i.e. a Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's and Easter party. All other parents arrived to these armed with an impressive array of cameras and video cameras. After the reminder email to bring our cameras to the Christmas party because Santa would be there, I tried to start bringing my camera along to these events. But even when I remembered to toss it in the bike trailer during our mad dash to leave on time in the morning, I often forgot to even bring it in and use it. When I did remember to pull out my camera during these photo ops, my heart wasn't in it. I really didn't feel that interested in seeing pictures years later of Olive putting plastic Easter eggs into a basket.
If I can convince myself to grab the camera during those moments when all I want to do is watch my children delightedly... those will be the photos I'll cherish in 10 years.
In the meantime, here are some photos from the day I asked Cody to help me finally take some photos of the kids in the Easter outfits I had sewn for them. But I also snapped a lot of pictures of them just being our cute kids. With some encouragement from Dad, that is. That man is a genius in getting our children to pose for photos. The picture of Junie and Olive hugging each other and smiling was achieved when he began playing "Simon Says" and instructed: "Simon says hug each other and smile."
1 comment:
Thank you, thank you, thank you, sweetheart! I do understand about the conundrum of what to document. However, in my experience, even the most seemingly insignificant visuals now bring back a flood of memories of daily life.
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