Published in The Packet
In January, I had all the digital photos we took over the
course of 2012 printed into a coffee table book I dubbed the family yearbook.
It was a hefty tome. Five percent of it was scenery shots of
our Golden Retriever frolicking about North Atlantic Canada, five percent were family
pictures from around the holidays, and ninety percent were pictures of our baby.
I really wanted the book to tell the story of our lives
through pictures. However, as I flipped through the book, I realized the story
my yearbook was telling and the story of our actual day-to-day life were quite
different.
One of the sadder aspects of my husband’s job is that during
the week he gets about an hour and a half of quality time with our baby before
we tuck her in for bed. I do most of the childcare around here. According to
our yearbook, dad is the primary caregiver.
In the pictures, my daughter had a mother who disappeared
shortly after her birth. We have a triumphant picture of me holding her in the
hospital. Then I vanish, and the book documents quality time with dad. There
are pictures of dad and baby reading together, dad and baby at a pumpkin patch,
dad showing the baby puffins, dad and baby looking at planes at the airport,
and a hundred more dad and baby variations.
I took these pictures. I love these pictures. But my
daughter doesn’t exist within a Disney cartoon. Unlike Princess Jasmine or
Ariel or Belle, my daughter has a doting mom. Her mom is just too busy behind
the camera to get in front of it.
“What if I die suddenly? How will my baby know she was
cuddled by me, bathed by me, kissed and soothed by me?” I complained to my
husband.
“Stop saying you’re too fat to be in pictures and then I’ll
take some,” my husband replied.
“Stop taking pictures where I look so fat,” I shot back.
Of course, he was right. Like most other moms, I avoid the
camera because I don’t want to remember the extra weight, the dark under eye
circles, and the frizzed out hair that have become my reality. I keep thinking
that when I fix these things about myself, I’ll beg my husband to fill our
camera with pictures of the baby and me.
Then I came across a Huffington Post article published in
October of last year by Allison Tate, called “The Mom Stays in the Picture.”
She described her resolution to get in pictures with her children despite her
self-perceived physical shortcomings because she knows both she and her
children will cherish these pictures later on. The article received tremendous
response from women who identified with the Tate’s story, and the Huffington
Post challenged women to submit photos of themselves with their kids. They
received over 2,000 pictures with moving descriptions of how treasured these
photographs were after time passed and kids got older, or after a divorce when
family pictures were scarce, or especially after tragedy intervened.
Now I was even more desperate for pictures with my baby.
“Take pictures of us building with the blocks!” I asked my
husband over the weekend. I asked for him to take more photos during story
time, and when I was pushing her in her little car around the backyard.
In all of them my eyes were closed, or open way too open, or
I looked like I was grimacing, or that I had four chins. I knew I shouldn’t
care, but they were truly horrible.
“Do I really look like this?” I asked my husband.
“No,” he replied. “You are beautiful. Just prodigiously
un-photogenic.”
I deleted all the pictures and went to bed.
Early the next morning, I found this picture on my camera
and for once I don’t mind that he took it when my eyes were closed.
Love, love, LOVE this blog post =) I completely identify with it....lots of pictures of Owen by himself or with his daddy. Also, I love the idea of a family yearbook - sounds like a summer project!
ReplyDeleteSending you guys lots of love!!!