we have been going for a lot of bike rides lately.  i grew up in this neighborhood but i had never seen this spot before.  we were there in the blazes of noon and my girl casually asked me if this looked like a good place for a photo shoot.  “like at sunset?  with the sun on those yellow flowers?  [trailing off] everything would be yellow…” she says.  yellow is her favorite color you know.  of course, i obliged.  um hello?!  like i hadn’t already been thinking it!   so we ate dinner, ditched the dishes and came back at sunset for our special shoot suggestion.  she wore yellow.  as she spun around, flowers in hand, i heard her whisper “this is my heaven!”.  mine too, sunshine…mine too!

the boys tested the muddy waters of the drainage ditch, climbed trees and built their weapons arsenal out of tree limbs.  the baby ate dead leaves and tasted yellow flowers and crawled around to his heart’s content.  and my girl?  she twirled, she skipped, she balanced and she sang.  i didn’t pose them or tell them what to do.  i just watched.  sometimes with my eye and a smile and sometime through my third eye.  so this is how a photoshoot with your own kids is supposed to go?

as the sun set and we were plum tuckered, we hopped on our bikes to go home.  i wished to have been in some of the images with them because at times i feel invisible.  not that i need to be visible for my own sake at all.  or even because i want to be seen.  but when i hold photos of my beautiful mother in my hand, i am so thankful my papa had his camera in hand.  as i hold pictures of my handsome and goofy papa, i am so glad someone grabbed the camera from him for a moment.  and as i set the self-timer, run like a spaz to get in position and pray that my camera doesn’t fall from the precarious position i left it in, i dream a little dream that my kids will have fond memories of our nights like these.  as they hold real photos in their hands.