Moments

Let’s talk about moments for a minute.

I love pictures of families who are posed and still and everyone is smiling. I love those.

But you know what else I love.

Moments.

Moments of not smiling. Moments of silliness and kissing and hugging. Moments of real life with your baby at that time in their life. Their cheerio eating, scowl-y faced, clingy to daddy, doesn’t appreciate the presence of a stranger, hates their clothing,  their hair, their shoes…. everything you think makes a photo shoot gone wrong stages.  I love them. Because after a decade at doing what I do….I have seen most everything. And I can’t tell you how many times I get panicked messages about the weather, or how terrible their kiddos behaved and “my-kids-were-so-bad-that-day-there-will-be-no-good-pictures”  messages.

And I always smile and say…of course there will be.

Because I’m magic.

Not really. But….. I can catch things. I can catch life. I can catch life. And yes, I may catch real life (I always send my clients a picture of their crying babies… to remind them of the realness of that day…)

But you know what… I also know the stages. And how they grow out of them so quickly, and how you wish 7 years down the line that we are still trying to chase them down when they run away from me. Or when they scowled and how many Cheerios we fed them… just for that.

In my house I have a picture of my son, a huge canvas… beautiful as can be… with a giant marshmallow in his hand, because at that point in time, the only thing that made him happy was a marshmallow and blue sippy cup. And now at 12 years old….I wish a marshmallow and blue sippy cup would solve all life’s problems now.

Cherish moments. Stages. I promise you will look back at them fondly.