My Heartfelt Advice

Day 8 of the "Blog Every Day in May" challenge:

"A piece of advice you have for others..."

Good gracious, this is tough topic.  I went back and forth about what advice I wanted to give you.  As I mentioned a few days ago, it's a little weird giving you guys advice when I feel so unqualified.  However, there is one piece of advice that I love to give to anyone and everyone that will listen, regarding anything and everything they do.  A universal truth that applies to life, but is especially important in the life of a child:

TAKE MORE PHOTOS!

You all know that I'm crazy about photography.  I'm addicted.  I can't help myself.  I've had a camera in my hands for as long as I could remember.  But never in my life have I taken more photos (or more significant photos) than I have this past year of my child.  I think taking photos of his childhood (babyhood?) is one of the most important things I can do for him (and me).  It's a way to preserve his tiny baby perfection.  It's documenting our life and solidifying our memories.  It's capturing those oh-so-important moments with the love of our life that we'll never be able to get back.

We all know how quickly the time goes by and how fast our little ones grow up.  As much as I try to live in the moment, I know there are a lot of moments I'm going to forget.  I want to remember the way he looks when he sleeps, the expression on his face when he sees the cat, the way he tries to use sign language, his surprise face, the zombie-like walking he does.  Not to mention all the little every day details that I want ingrained in my memory: the curl in his hair over his ear, the size of his feet, the dirt on his fingers, the length of his eyelashes, the fullness of his lips, the color of his eyes, the tip of his nose.  

They're not super little for very long.  Most of that time is spent by us in a constant state of sleep deprivation, worrying and surging hormones.  Luckily, we tend to quickly get over just how hard those first few days weeks months were.  If I didn't have a hundred photos of that time in Mac's life, I'm not sure how much (if any) I'd remember.  And as big of a pain in the ass it was to get out the camera and tempt waking a sleeping baby, it's so worth it.

Even after the new baby smell wears off, time just doesn't seem to slow down.  The milestones come one after another, fast and furious.  The memories of those little achievements are replaced with the next big thing.  Rolling turns to crawling turns to walking turns to running.  "Dadadadada" turns into "Dad, can I borrow the car?"  The moments fly by in the blink of an eye.

I try to have my camera out, fully charged and ready to go so I can grab it at a moment's notice.  Of course I always have it with me for the big moments, the vacations, the sporting events, the trips.  But I also want to make sure I capture photos of Mac just doing what he does - playing with the pots and pans, chasing the dogs, devouring pasta, emptying the laundry basket, climbing the stairs, getting a diaper change, throwing a ball, playing with the remote, knocking over the trashcan, eating sticks.   Some days I'll take 400 photos and some days I might take 4.  Sometimes I will go an entire week without taking a single photo and am shocked when I go back to see how much he's changed in that one little week.  Missed opportunities.  Don't put it off until tomorrow, because he'll never again be as little as he is today.

So my advice to you - get your camera out (I mean your real camera, not just your iPhone), clear your memory cards and get snapping!  Get pictures of all those little details and moments in your day that you just KNOW you'll never forget, because sometimes...you forget.  Take hundreds of pictures, just to keep a couple of the best.  They don't all have to be perfect.  He doesn't have to be smiling or even looking at you.  And If you're worried that your photos aren't as good as everyone else's - don't be.  Your child is never going to look back on photos of himself as a baby and say, "I wish my baby photos looked like s0-and-so's photos."  No, he's going to say, "Look how little I was.  Look how young and pretty you were, mom. Look at dad's hair!" And if you're concerned, just know that practice and experimenting are the best ways to get better at photography.  Your skills will improve with each photo you take and you'll have those pictures of your little one to always look back on.  That's a win-win, my friend.