Fake Camping 2013: Part One
I write often about how blessed and lucky I feel to be a mother, motherhood changed my life in so many ways for the better. Barry and I had a fantastic life that immediately got more wonderful once we became parents. That said, I would be a liar if I said that there were a few things I didn’t miss from my former life. Since sleep is the obvious thing that EVERY parent misses, I’ll go out on a limb and assume y’all either feel the same way or know what I’m talkin’ about. So, sleep aside, I think that I really miss camping and the ability to throw just a few things in the car and be set. The past FEW summers we’ve really abandoned that part of our lives and I miss it dearly. Without a shadow of a doubt, I know that we’ll get back into heading out with regularity, but we’ll probably have a lot more gear than when we were free wheelin’ singletons.
We took Maggie camping when she was just a fewmonths old and we just weren’t feeling that ambitious this time around. My brothers, Geneviève, and parents were willing to come ‘fake camping’ with us at Camp Janet for a weekend in early August. It happened to fall on my mom’s birthday, as well as a weekend that my grandparents, Sue and Chach were able to come up to A-Town for a visit/concert. As far as Maggie could tell, it was one more time that a group of her favorite people got together, with the bonus of a tent set up in the yard at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. These pictures are from the afternoon of our arrival. . .
HB Fam Pictures: Letting Go of that Perfect Image
If you were to come over to my house, you’d notice that we’ve got a massive print hanging on the wall of the above image. Maggie was only a year old and obviously our family has changed substantially since it was taken. I love that picture and everything about it. It was taken on a weekend afternoon. Both Barry and I had done workouts that morning and he’d just gotten out of the shower with wet hair. Truthfully, his eyes were windblown and red. I hadn’t showered yet and changed into the jeans and blouse quickly for the photo. I set up my camera on top of the picnic table and set the timer….we got some of my very favorite family photos yet.
Now that we’re a two-kid family, getting family photos isn’t easy. Somebody is usually not looking at the camera, fully dressed, or crying….and we get images that look like the ones above or below. I know that lots of people love the staged images of a whole family sitting in the middle of a grassy field, with outfits coordinated by Pintrest. I enjoy looking at those images, and I think they’re important, mostly because they document a version of life. (The version that says “Hey, we can get our sh*t together….). I’ve finally decided that we’re just not that family. We’re not matching and we will probably never really be camera-ready. And I’m okay with that.
Your Pug Butt is a great photo bomb.
Love,
H
The pictures that I really, really love to look at, and to take, are the real ones. No, not the pictures of Sydney’s butt or or Maggie’s boots 3 sizes too big, but more of the ones that show REAL life. Moments that are not usually documented…I’ve been daydreaming a ton these days about becoming a ‘real’ photographer and the type of images that I’d like to get. I’ve always been passionate about children, but I’m learning that I’m also passionate about motherhood, parenthood, and small moments.
I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I’m also trying to get better at passing the camera to others to make sure that I’m not invisible. And these pictures that my mom took of us at her house aren’t wonderful; in fact, we look like a mess, but I’m glad we have them. This was a start of Fake Camping 2013. But the pictures that I got from that weekend – the ones that I took when people were just living life, are by far my favorite.
I want my children to have pictures of all of us together, and I think it’s time I come to terms with the fact that we’re a hodge-podgey type of family. I would have it no other way….this is what we look like.
So, here’s to taking more family photos to document the fact that we’re together, rather than the fact that we’re matching. Because if we waited for that day….we’d have hardly a single picture. It isn’t about what we’re wearing, what the light is doing, or even if I’ve showered. It’s about documenting life, the smallest of moments, the perfectly imperfect.
