Pictures

For Christmas I made Piyum a photo album of Livija's first year. It felt kind of archaic to peel back those sticky pages and smooth out the wrinkles as I placed each picture; but, there's something kind of nostalgic about a tangible photo album. It goes hand in hand with the sound of that plasticky, crinkly paper that used to be wrapped around every library book you brought home as a kid. It was dusty, and yellow, and just made those bound pages feel like a BOOK.

Anyway, Livija is fascinated by turning the pages of the album and identifying all of the family members. She makes me "read" it with her over and over again with glee. This weekend, as I was helping her turn the pages, I "oohed" and "ahhed" with her over her baby pictures. My heart smiled, and for a moment I thought, "I could do this again."

Then I remembered this picture:

This might be the one slice of photographic evidence that Livija's first 17 months have not been all peaches and cream. I look at this picture and I remember the pictures that don't exist:

- Picture of Livija tracking dog poop across my dining room with her bare feet

- Picture of Livija crying as we enter night #1 of Ferber with no swaddle or pacifier

- Picture of Mommy bursting into tears as she spills formula all over the kitchen floor

- Picture of Daddy entering hour three of rocking Livija to sleep to get her through her ear infection

- Picture of Mommy and Daddy with enormous bags under their eyes, and their underwear on over their pants because they haven't slept more than 4 hours straight in an entire year

It has just occurred to me that there is a very intentional biological reason why we have no instinct to grab the camera in these moments - we would never reproduce if we had photographic evidence to remember them by!

Instead we take pictures of the smiles, the hugs, the laughter, and the silliness and decide we just want oodles and oodles of these miraculous gifts!

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to start taking some photos of the tantrums and boo-boos - not for birth control reasons as you might think - but rather to show me what I've overcome, endured, and conquered. I know people have babies every day, but I'm friggin' proud of my accomplishment. Having Livija has challenged me in ways that I never dreamed possible, and while I love to look at her gorgeous face lit by a setting sun, I also like to look at how far we've come!