but you aren’t in any?!  she is mad about it and kind of shocked at this new realization.  eight years old and she is just now seeing it.  and she isn’t happy.

i can help you, she tells me.  i can hold your camera very carefully and take your picture so you can be in some?

fingers in her hair, i thank her and smile.  what would i be doing in these pictures?

normal stuff.  mama stuff.  you take pictures of us doing normal stuff so i can take pictures of you.  doing normal stuff.

laughter.  between us both.  papa rolls his eyes at the thought of two freaks with cameras in the house but i know he is joking.  he loves it.

but I let her.  i trust her.  she is careful with the camera.  the tries different angles and asks me to move my elbow down a bit.  or she doesn’t even tell me and just takes a picture, captures a moment.  she smiles at the back of the camera at the treasure she has produced and tells me just one more.  ten more later, she gently sets it down on my desk and goes back to coloring.

i wonder why.  so i ask her.

i want to rememberance you.  there is lots of us but we need more of you.

and she runs off again. as usual, taking my heart with her.

they may not be amazing or have awesome light or even mean anything to anyone else, but they belong.  they are our moments and they tell our story and they remind us of life at that stage.

image one:  drying off baby with the towel after bath.  they only let you cuddle them in the towel for a short while.

image two:  jonah loves me to read to him as he has his bedtime milk.  no matter what i am reading at the time (currently To Kill A Mockingbird, minus all the ugly words), he scratches the pages of the book gently, in expectation.  he lays there, quietly listening to the story, looking up at me every now and then.  i think he already knows how to drag out bedtime as long as he can.  but i love it all the same.

both images are straight out of the camera with only slight adjustments to the overall light.  pretty proud of my girl…