If Only They Would Use Their Powers for Good

It never occurred to me before I had a child of my own that every skill a child develops, as wonderful and amazing as it is, can be used for ill as well as for good. A skill as simple and basic as learning to roll over can be hazardous on the changing table. Being able to walk means being able to crack one’s head open on the corner of a table. Being able to turn a doorknob means being able to get into all kinds of dangerous, forbidden places. Learning to talk means learning to talk back. And learning how to take off your own diaper means that your mother will have plenty of blackmail photographs for when you’re 13.

Yes, over the past few weeks Ryan has discovered how to take off his diaper, and has taken every opportunity to hone that skill. I often put him down for a nap with just a shirt and a diaper, and several days this week I went to get him up from his nap and found him wearing just a shirt. So it was not a great surprise today when I checked the baby monitor after he’d been in his crib for ten minutes or so, and I was treated to the sight of him sleeping soundly, in his usual posture of face buried in a blanket, clutching his rag, with his little bum sticking up in the air – covered in nothing but a thin sheen of Desitin.

Naturally, my immediate thought was to grab the camera. The image of my sleeping angel with his adorable naked bottom in the air is one I want to remember for years. But I hesitated, because what kind of mother keeps a photo like that around to embarrass her child in the years to come? My mother has a few photos of me that I’d rather had never seen the light of day. Do I really want my son to suffer the mortification that I do whenever I see those photos?

Who am I kidding? Of course I do.

But not until he's thirteen and really, really asking for it.

Let's Be Candid

I’ll admit it: We take a ton of pictures of Ryan. Sometimes we take them while he’s doing something interesting, sometimes we set him up and try to get him to look at the camera, but no matter what we do, they’re always “candid” photos. He has no concept of a camera, so he’ll never smile patiently while waiting for the shutter to click, as adults do. If he’s smiling, he’s smiling, and if he’s not, he’s not, and there’s not much that anyone can do about it. But the wonderful thing about that fact is that each and every picture of him catches a genuine, honest, unguarded moment.

One of my favorite examples of candid photos is a strip of photos we took in a photo booth at Herb’s work’s 50th anniversary party. You sit in the booth and press a button, and the automated camera counts down and takes a photo, then counts down again and takes another, then another and another. The result may not be flattering, but it is indeed a snapshot of the subjects in the truest sense.

You can see Ryan progress from “What’s going on?” to “Who’s that in the monitor?” to “Ooh, there are lights up there!” to “OK, I’m done now [escape squirm].”. It absolutely captures the minutes we spent in the booth.

I love how the camera captures his true personality. It isn’t always smiles and paying attention. It’s often squirming, or distracted, or even pouty or crying. Sometimes it’s delight, sometimes it’s puzzlement, sometimes it’s curiosity. Sometimes it’s frustration, sometimes it’s anger, sometimes it’s exhaustion. And as he grows up and learns to mask those emotions – especially in front of the camera – we’ll miss seeing those candid moments. So I’m glad we’re capturing them all: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Delight

Dislike

Unhappiness

Curiosity

Exhaustion

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

If I Could Save Time in a Bottle

The other day I was looking through my photo files and I got looking back through the photos of Ryan that I’ve saved month by month. Somehow, even though I know how much he’s grown and changed, it was amazing to look at actual photos of him from months and months ago. Was he ever really that tiny and helpless?

I’d forgotten there used to be so much room when he was on the changing table.

I'd forgotten his arms and legs were ever that skinny.

I’d forgotten the Floyd hair and the “scrunchy face”.

His rapt attention to Daddy hasn’t changed, though.

Nor the way he sleeps with his bum in the air.

He’s always been a good laugher, especially for Daddy.

We see “space face” a little less often than we used to, but it’s still there.

I vaguely remember when he needed a little help to sit up. (And when his hair was so red!)

He can still fall asleep anywhere, anytime.

He still occasionally gives me this face, although it's a slightly less pudgy face these days.

I realize how much he’s slimmed down when I see this photo, when he really did look like the Michelin Man. Look at those arm creases!!

I remember being so proud of that first little tooth. As was he!

His first few incursions into the pool weren’t quite as exuberant as they are now. I forget that he wasn’t always such an old pro.

He’s always looked like a little angel when he sleeps.

Ever since he could reach dirt, he’s loved playing in it. And eating it.

Suddenly, he’s such a big, independent boy! Although I guess it wasn't really that sudden.

It’s only been 9-1/2 months, and already I’m looking back in amazement at how quickly time has gone by and how much he’s changed. What will it be like when I’m looking back five years, or ten years, or twenty years? I guess it’ll be just like this, only with a bigger pile of pictures to look back through.

Chubby Naked Babies!

There are really very few times in a person's life other than babyhood when being naked is acceptable. But babies are just so perfect, so innocent, and so unspoiled that being naked is perfectly natural. So of course, most people end up with a photo or two like this in their baby books:

There are also very few times in a person's life other than babyhood when being chubby - even VERY chubby - is considered adorable (and healthy!). Maybe the latter is the reason for the former. After all, who as an adult would want a pictorial documentation of rolls of fat around their tummy, creases where there aren't joints, knuckle dimples, and chin upon chin upon chin? But when the owner of all those chins is a baby, we think it's the cutest thing ever. Who doesn't want to pinch those chipmunk cheeks? Squeeze those mighty thighs? Tickle that jiggly belly? Kiss those pudgy toes? Baby chub is beautiful!

And the best part is that despite the way adult aesthetics have changed through the ages, baby chub has always been beautiful! The most beautiful women of the various ages have been depicted as curvaceous and voluptuous as during the Raphaelite era, tall and wasp-waisted as during the Edwardian age, flat-chested and boyish as during the Roaring Twenties, or anorexically thin yet big-busted as today.

But the most beautiful babies have always been round-faced and chubby-cheeked, with dimples and creases and chins abounding. So let’s hear it for beautiful, chubby, naked babies!

And of course we can't forget the cutest chubby naked baby of all!