Seize the Moment

The main reason I decided to pursue photography was so that I could take better photos of my kids (not an original story, I assure you). But, where to draw the line between being in the moment, and capturing the moment? As a mom, I don’t want photography to interfere with making memories. As a photographer, I want all those special moments captured safely on digital film. I think this will be my eternal struggle.

We had a huge snowstorm last week overnight. We woke up to a good 5″ and it was still coming down pretty hard. Immediately, my 3yo insisted that we go out and play in the snow. Although he hates waiting for anything, we had to drop big sister off at school and put the baby down for nap before we could bundle up and head out. In the course of shoveling our driveway, I discovered that the snow had the desired water content for PERFECT snowman snow. So, snowman we did. I enjoyed it. I rolled the balls, he helped pack them together. We played.

It was only after sufficient memories had been made (and ones I hope he will remember as well) that I pulled out the camera. Did I get all of our adventure on film? No. Looking at my photos, I would love to have a TON more. The crazy part, is that by the afternoon our snow man was pretty much melted. Andrew had to run outside and rescue our Mr. Potato Head parts. Had I procrastinated, been lazy, been too caught up in getting the right camera equipment out, or otherwise thought “we’ll do it later” our little adventure wouldn’t have happened.

There’s balance to being a mom*tog. Most days I don’t get it right, but this time was perfect. I had enough play time with Andrew so he knew I really cared about him, that I wanted to play with him, and I have photos for both of us to look back and remember our little play date.

As I was tucking my son into bed that night he looked up at me with his big blue eyes and said “Mommy. This was the best day EVER.”