In Front and Behind the Camera

I've always known how lucky I am to be able to get awesome shots of my little family.  I look at those images and hope that one day, they'll look at the same photos and understand how much I love them.  I know it's not the same as my actual presence in these moments, but the photos mean so much more to me than just documenting what they were doing at this particular time.  These photos are my very own personal, special gifts to these people that I love very much.  

I seldom write about how much I love this kid, because there aren't enough words to adequately describe it.  But I believe my photographs can show it better.

                                      

This makes me realize how blessed I am to see this world with the eyes of a parent and a photographer.  The ability to capture details like this and preserve them in photographs that you can always go back to is an awesome gift. 

And I know it's not good, but I tend to avoid photographic evidence of my existence.  Not just because on top of not losing the baby weight 5 years after said baby was born, I gained even more, but because I've always been more comfortable behind the camera.  I don't quite know what to do with myself in front of it.

But I've realized that I need to make an effort to get in the picture.  My child needs to see me, the me now, at this age.  I am everywhere in his life - I gave birth to him, nursed him, cried when I got home after dropping him off at kindergarten, and ran on empty after sleepless when he was sick - but I have very few pictures with him.  Someday, and I don't know when, I won't be here, but I want him to have photos of me.  I want him to see how I held him, how I looked at him, how I loved him.  I know I don't look "perfect," and I am far from being a perfect person, but I am perfectly  his mommy.

When I look at pictures of my mom, I don't look at her hair, her waistline, or her clothes.  I just see her, my mom.  

 

So I am now making a promise that if I can't do it for myself, if I still wince and cringe at the idea of being in front of the camera because I'm not satisfied with the way I look, I want to do it for this kid.  I will try my hardest to get in the picture, and gift him with a visual memory of me.  

Growing Up

-   You don’t know how long you’ve got until your kids question the things you want them to do.  He almost didn't do this photo.  He even kind of questioned my parenting skills saying if he gets run over by the train, I will be jailed. It reminded me that he's growing up at the speed in which I wish I lost weight.    

Kids don’t stay the same.

Take advantage of the young years when you can still kiss them on the lips without them wiping it. 

When they ask to be carried, resist the urge to say no when you’re not in any danger of permanently injuring your back anyways.  Because there will come a day when they won’t even want to be seen with you.

When they just won’t sleep in their own room … or in their own bed, let them sleep beside you.  There’s something so sweet about having your child fall asleep in the crook of your arm, even if hours later, you wake up finding yourself with a size 10 foot where your glasses used to be.   

Whatever today is, you will never have it again with your child/ren, because tomorrow, they will older and slightly different.  Try to answer all their questions, even the difficult ones like where they came from, because someday, they won't even tell you where they're going.  

Disappointed

I no longer have a romanticized conception of lifelong best friends – I know it’s a myth.  I now believe that friendships are sort of like relationships.  Some turn into life-giving bonds of mutual love and support, while others deteriorate into unhealthiness and toxicity.   And when a friendship ends – unexpectedly, predictably, gradually, or suddenly; through a message on a social networking site, phone call, or actual fight; with words that reverberate long after they’ve been said or deafening silence – it sucks.

Yes.  No other fancy word for it.

It just plain sucks.

I had someone distance herself from me a while ago, and when I mustered enough nerve to ask if there was anything wrong, I was given a litany of excuses that I didn’t even want to question out of its sheer meaninglessness.  I mean, we are friends.  She just wouldn’t wake up one day determined to treat me as if I don’t exist after years of friendship, right?

We didn’t have an argument.  I didn’t run away with her husband, or ran her dog over.  But if she felt that I did anything wrong, I can trust that she’ll be enough of a friend to actually tell me so we can move on from it, right?

Right?

I gave her the benefit of the doubt because maybe it truly is busyness that’s preventing her from responding to my text messages.  Sadly, I don’t believe that’s the case anymore.  Maybe it’s just me, but if someone has enough time to readjust her Facebook privacy settings to block me from seeing her #throwbackthursday posts, then she would have time to reply to a text message.  Even if it’s just an emoticon.  Or a measly “k.”

And this is why I am sad.

I feel that she kind of lied to me.  When she first told me there was nothing wrong, I blindly believed her.  Why wouldn’t I?  This is a person I’ve known since I was a college freshman, and is a godmother to my child.  If she told me aliens made crop circles in her backyard, I will make us tinfoil hats to protect us from their mind-controlling abilities.  Maybe the circumstances that have drawn us together just changed so I really shouldn’t take anything personally.  But how can I not when messages are unanswered, and invitations are declined from my side, and not sent at all from hers? 

There’s this practical side of me that is now questioning my intelligence and is asking myself why I can’t get it through my thick head that this “friend” is giving me the boot.  But there is also this part of me that believes people are inherently good, so I refuse to believe that she’d do that to me, especially since I’ve done nothing wrong.  I guess I didn’t want to entertain the possibility that this person that I trusted could intentionally hurt me this way.  To be kind of “dumped” by someone who’s seen me at my most vulnerable, it’s a little heartbreaking.  To want to ask her for an explanation is quite humiliating, and to feel the need to apologize for something I might have done that I have no clue of is a little bit degrading. 

I don’t want to dwell on this strange feeling, but I find myself constantly trying to figure out what went wrong because one moment we were like family, the next we might as well have been strangers.  I was left with the feeling that I never knew her at all.  And maybe I never have.  Who knows … for now, I have to constantly remind myself that things aren’t what they were before, and that while it is kind of my loss that I no longer have a friend in her, it’s more of a loss on her side because I am pretty awesome.   And if she didn’t know that, then maybe she wasn’t a friend to begin with.  So it’s really not a loss to me.  Right? 

5th

Happy 5th to the little boy we love the most in the whole entire universe.  

He wanted a Skylanders-themed birthday party, so Skylanders it is.

Finding Skylanders party merch wasn't easy so I had to DIY all of them. I am pretty sure there's some kind of copyright I've infringed from googling and using images, but the boy asked for it and I will not say no to that.

Also, it was nice to see that over 2 years after sold my soul to Pinterest, it finally paid off.  

Thank you to the guests who came over our house the day of his actual birthday =)

And then we had another party at an indoor playground with his classmates.  

Happy birthday, little boy!  We love you very much, to the moon and back.