The most magical time in our lives right? Creating and growing this tiny sees who joins the world and changes our lives in ways we never imagined even possible. Some little person who is you. This same person you can stare at for hours even when they are doing nothing. Their cries make you want to solve all of the world’s problems in one fell swoop. You’re going to watch them grow and learn and fail and succeed. You’ll be there for their highs and lows and everything in between. They will see and experience struggles in their lives and world like we have never seen. BUT…
They are pieces of you
Maybe it’s their eyes. Or their fingers. Perhaps it’s the way their ears are shaped. Did they inherit your patient temperament? Or maybe your partner’s temper (no names mentioned but you can check out the evidence on Monday’s here). Are they the magical combination of two that created something entirely new? Regardless though, of all the millions of combinations and ways they come out, they are just them. Exactly who they should be.
The craziest thing about these newest earth-side creatures is how they change, sometimes in just a day if you’re paying attention. You can put them to bed at night, swaddled up all cozy and warm. When they cry out to you in the morning and you walk into their nursery, you might think you have a changeling. Their scrawny and wrinkly newborn limbs fill out and become adorable chunky ankles and wrists. Those tiny bird like whimpers ultimately because heartbroken wails. Their hair grows. Their eyes change color. They start talking. And it all happened SO DANG FAST.
All of This
Is the very reason I started my photography journey. Once upon a time I was that fresh and admittedly clueless parent who had no idea that babies really don’t wear shoes when you leave the house because you will basically just lose them. They also do not need shoes indoors because you will basically just lose them. I didn’t know the car would make one kid fall fast asleep and the other scream like a banshee. As I photographed my own kids I could see little differences in their looks and mannerisms and how much bigger they got so fast.
I needed to bottle up all the newness and change and keep it forever lest I forget one single second. Our memory often tells us lies and changes our stories to fit our personal narrative…but a photograph can’t lie. At least not an honest photograph, a storytelling photograph. The kind where the doting grandparents pass off the fragile babe ever so carefully, or you catch the dad who is probably the most exhausted (and happy) he’s ever been in his whole life. These are the most beautiful moments.
Someday they’ll be grow up and probably curse you under their breath for making them be home by 11, and telling them beer and throwing rocks at trains is bad, and to stay away from the devil’s lettuce. And you’ll want to document all of the stages in between like here, and here and here too. Then you’ll always have photographs of the teeny tiny moments to make you remember how quiet, and sweet and snuggly they once were. Photographs cannot lie.
