ME AND MINE

Photographs capture moments in time. I have a lot of pictures, and I enjoy looking at them. The advent of digital cameras certainly has made it very easy to transfer the photographs onto the computer. Scanners are great for copying pictures that were taken before the arrival of digital cameras.

Holidays always get me to thinking about how swiftly time passes. With those thoughts, I invariably either go through photo albums or look at the pictures stored here on my computer (but also backed up on CDs). I cannot watch the videos we took of our children. I get so sad. It overwhelms me when I see them crawling and jabbering. The time has passed in a blink of an eye, and they are no longer the little people they once were. I suspect one day I will be able to watch those films without falling apart.

Anyway, I came across some pictures of my precious children. I have never had distinctly clear pictures of my kids in my journal. Something about their privacy I have wished to protect, and I usually fiercely do so. However, they said they did not mind if I wanted to put a couple of photos in here. To all of you parents out there, you will understand what I am referring to when I say they go from small to big in the beat of a heart.

This first picture is them in front of the playhouse we built for them:
::sigh:: And here is a shot of them more recently. They morphed into grownups almost behind my back it seems.
Geez, I am wild about them. (As every parent should be about their children.) I look at them and my heart goes crazy. I can still see bits of the tiny people they once were in them today. The shape of their fingers, the way they smile, the texture of their hair. It is a very good thing that I do not dislike any particular age. There is something wonderful about each stage of a child's life. The "terrible twos" do not exist for me. Neither do the allegedly "wretched teen years." I say with total and absolute honesty that I enjoy them however old they are. And while they may have physically grown, they will always, ALWAYS, be my beloved babies.

Now, in perusing additional photos, I had to laugh. My family refers to me as a chameleon, because I never look the same in pictures. We are not talking mega years in between the shots, either. Within a short period of time, I transform drastically. Maybe it has something to do with needing change in my life, and my fondness for it.

The following are pictures of me taken on Thanksgiving Day, 2003 and 2005 (at that charming club). Yes, I have cropped out my sisters and my mother, since I have not asked their permission to include them in this journal. It amuses me how we four girls automatically line up in our birth order and pull Mom in the middle of us. Lordy. Check out the blonde to brown tresses. LOL! Yep, I went through a "I want to be a blonde" stage. I liked it at the time, but it has been something of a nightmare returning it to its natural color. It is still not the right shade...it is too dark, and I am not liking that. Then there are the bangs to no bangs and curls to straight look, as well as the lipstick is obvious (because it was taken prior to eating our meal) to the lipstick is totally gone (post-meal photo!), and the small smile to a wide one. The only thing I have not changed is my fondness for leather. How fun to mess around with one's appearance.

Left the same amidst these changes is who we are inside. There has not been one iota of change there. That goes for me and mine. And it makes me smile.

"You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was." ~Irish Saying