Just Take the Dang Picture Already

                 I’m one of those moms who takes hundreds of pictures. Vacations, outings, holidays, special moments, soccer matches or Saturday morning…..I have almost 2 dozen photo albums and a bulging Shutterfly account. If you’re wondering, yes, they are all notated on the back and in chronological order in albums. (C’mon, it’s like you don’t even know me after 10 years.)

                Because if there is one thing that I’ve learned in my 26 years of parenting…if you blink, you’ll find yourself the parent of a 26 year old, wondering what the hell happened and where your size 6 jeans went. (They were last seen many, many maternity pants ago.)

                I think pictures are my way of coping with children who refuse to stay little forever. (Even though I ask them pretty much weekly to stop growing up.) In six months I will have a senior in high school for the third time. My youngest will be starting middle school. I find myself in this weird flux where I am starting to look forward to a time when we are empty nesters and able to travel and trying to hold onto every single moment from their childhood before they fly the coop for good. If you had told me 20 years ago that I would one day become a maudlin old lady, I would call you a bald-faced liar. And yet, here I am. A maudlin old mom trying to hold on to her babies through digital imagery.

                I think back to the early years of my two oldest children, before digital cameras and pictures you could order straight to your mailbox, and I feel like they got gypped. Not only do I have limited photos of them, but I have hardly any pictures of me with them. (This was pre-selfie. I know, I’m ancient. I prefer the term “antique” though.) And as I got older, I started to get very self-conscious about being memorialized as I was in that moment. I felt awkward, messy, fat or unkempt. I didn’t want my kids to remember mom as I was at that specific point in time. Which was stupid since that’s exactly how they remember me. But instead of judging me for having messy hair or a squishy tummy, they remember hugs and snuggle and laughs. If there is one thing I could go back and tell myself, it would be to take the picture. You are going to want those memories one day. Messy hair, exhausted from sleepless newborn nights, or in a bathing suit at the beach, just take the picture. I can’t believe how many more memories I could have saved in pictures that I didn’t want to take. (Just think, I could be well over two dozen albums by now!)

                By the time that I got over myself, I was always the one behind the camera, not in front of it. There are many vacations and Christmases past where there might be one, possibly two, pictures of me. I enlisted my husband to take photos of me just to have proof that I was actually there. Now I just have to get him to send them to me. I got a glimpse of his camera roll the other day and there were so many adorable pics of the boys on there that I had never seen, let alone saved and printed for the albums. (Yeah, I would definitely be over 24 with those.)

                In our kitchen we have a digital screen that we view pictures on. It cycles through them and it’s a nice variety of images from the last few years. Probably my favorite picture on there is one that was taken by a stranger. When you’re trying to incorporate your whole family in a picture it’s usually a selfie type of snap with someone’s head half out of the picture or squished in at the bottom. You are grateful to have the whole family together but it’s not the same as a picture taken by someone else, with entire bodies of all family members! (Look at that, we had legs the whole time!) So when this lovely women saw us struggling to squish ourselves together for this picture she offered to take it for us. I try to pay that small favor forward whenever I can. If I see someone doing the selfie squish, I will offer to take their picture. Or if I see the photographer combo swap with them taking turns to get everyone in the pics, I will offer to take the picture. Because one day, it might be their favorite picture too.

                While I’m not telling you to meet my fanatical level of picture taking, (it’s probably best if you start slow and work up to obsessive), I do encourage you to take more pictures. Friends, family, pets, sunsets, flowers…. whatever makes you happy. And if your eye spies the selfie squish or photographer swap, offer to take the picture. Maybe we can all pay it forward enough to make it a thing.

 

 

 

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