Baby Pics & Self
October 11, 2007 by Tracee Sioux
Filed under Parenting
I grew up a military brat. When my parents had two very small children (before they had 4) we were moving from an Air Force base in California to one in Louisiana.
My parents had loaded every single thing they owned in a moving van with the intention of leaving in the morning.
It was stolen. STOLLEN. Everything, every stick of furniture, every bit of clothing, every dish, every single thing.
The insurance money paid their student loans and they moved on. Of course, they have new furniture now.
What couldn’t be replaced were the baby pictures. My brother and I grew up without baby pictures or baby books or any memorabilia about our baby years.
When I was about 11 or 12, an aunt finally gave my mother a little photo album she had kept from when I was a baby. I was the first grandchild on my father’s side and everyone was excited. It was the only real evidence of what I might have looked like as a baby. I had black hair. I didn’t turn blond until later.
Just like Ainsley did when she was born. That seemed important when Ainsley was born – that we looked similar.
I always felt bad that no one had made a photo album of my brother. In fact, due to the transient military lifestyle my parents lived, few of our relatives even had memories or photos of him as an infant. I always thought not even knowing what he looked like as a baby effected his sense of self somehow.
Last year when his new wife was pregnant I started calling and emailing relatives to send any baby photo of him they could find. I knew when his daughter was born it would mean something to him if she had a similar feature or look as he did.
This entire entry is a clue. I’m giving away a special gift to one reader that comments. It’s part of our Blogtoberfest Giveaway.
I’m not really allowed to tell you what I’m giving away, but you’re gonna love it. If you leave a comment telling me what baby pictures mean to you, you could be the winner.
Right now, thinking about baby pictures makes me feel guilty.
You see, I have a huge stack of D-Mac’s baby pictures I need to send to my grandparents. I was very good about sending pictures for the first 6 months, and then I don’t know what happened. I think that was about the time my husband was trying to finish his dissertation, I was dealing with PPD, and we were all really stressed out. I got way behind in paperwork and correspondence and still haven’t caught up. D-Mac is now 20 months old.
Now that we’ve moved and settled in, I really ought to send the pictures. But I always seem to find something else more pressing – bills to pay, laundry to fold, dishes to wash. I’ll do correspondence when I’m finished with these chores, I think. And then I’m never finished.
So, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to sit down today, maybe drink some wine for courage, and send those pictures. I’m stating here I’m going to do it, and I will. God help me. The guilt is overwhelming.
We keep a good photo record of our lives on flickr for family and friends. I am slowly scanning in old, old photographs of my ancestors. I even scan in the children’s drawings and early efforts at writing. If I ever lose our pictures or the computer eats them, I will still be able to see them on flickr.
I have always been a fanatic about pictures, but since my son was born they have taken on a whole new meaning to me. They are my ONLY tangible link to the past and mean more to me than most could even imagine!
I’m dying to know, were you able to find photos of your brother? I hope so. I never thought about it, but this is probably one reason why you like taking a lot of photos.
I love seeing photos of myself and my husband as babies, just to reconnect with who we were then, how much we’ve grown, how cute we were. Both sets of parents and grandparents took lots of photos, so I am grateful for that.
My sister-in-law had her first child a couple of years ago and has gone a little photo crazy. She decided to devote an entire wall in her house to photos of her daughter. From top to bottom, it is covered with snapshots. A little much, but I think it is lovely how much she loves her child.
I’m the youngest of eight, so there aren’t very many baby pics of me. The ones that I have though mean the world to me.
Now that I have two kids of my own, I am constantly taking pictures and having them printed. It takes up a lot of my time, but I know it is worth it.
Time goes by too fast and i want to capture every minute…not only for myself, but also for them.
Don’t feel guilty Susanna. You have a baby and that’s a lot of work. Raising actual babies always takes precident over pictures of babies in the mail.
workoutmommy it’s worth all the time. I feel bad I took more pics of Ainsley than I do of Zack. Mostly its to save money and because first baby was more exciting and I had more free time then.
Violet, you will have to check back to find out whether or not I found baby pictures of him.
I’ll leave comments open until Monday. Then I shall pick a winner of a super-cool prize.
Baby Pictures mean everything. I know I used to always ask to see my baby album when I was little. I loved to look at pictures of my family members when they were babies. I love to compare how family members look. My younger brother and my father could have been twins! How fun is that to find out.
I take a ton of pictures of my nieces (no babies yet). A lot more of the first born than the second. Isn’t that how it always works? And with this digital camera business, my photos tend to stay on the computer or in the camera. I don’t get them developed. There are some great photos no one is seeing. It is sad.
Yeah all the pics stay on a CD and every person in our family mark every CD with
the words “Newest Family Pictures.” For a while they were on floppies, we’ll never see those again!
Duh.
I find the older I get the more nostalgic I am. I, too, grew up as a Navy Brat, so instead of childhood friends I have pictures of childhood friends. Just recently I was contacted by a really good high school friend (it’s been almost 30 years!) and it was so nice to go back to those days in pics. It is motivating me to get back to my children’s scrapbooks that have been neglected!
My poor brother doesn’t have any baby pictures either. He mentions it all the time when he is pissed at my mom
I am a big scrapbooker because I love displaying my son’s pictures along wit things that are important to my baby memories. Preserving his pictures in a special way will surely remind him how much he is loved, no matter where he goes in life. Time definitely flies by before you know it!
I have absolutely no idea what I looked like as a small baby. My sister and brother are ten and nine years older than me and by the time I showed up, I think my mom was exausted. The only photo I’ve seen of me (before school pictures) I was about 10 months old, sitting on the shag carpet holding a squeeky toy. I would love to know what I looked like at one month old or 4 months or 6 months. Maybe that’s why I’m fanatical now about documenting things with my camera.
We have so few and our kids have so many. I want to memorialize every first: first haircut, first tooth, first t-ball game, first day of school. I may not look at most of this stuff more than once a year, but I get a warm feeling just knowing it’s there.
Tracee,
Thank you for your article about pictures. I definitely have similar guilt feelings as expressed by other moms. I have 3 children and in my case, since I bought a digital camera after the 3rd was born, I actually have more pictures of her than of my middle child. I never get enough photos out to family members and I don’t have adequate documentation in baby books for my kids (but I have a LOT of photos in boxes!). I sometimes feel like life is on hold until I can get everything organized, but after 8 years with children, I have finally realized that “this” is life! So, now I take digital photos, upload them to Kodak and share them with people, still not as often as I should, but more than I have in the past. It frees you from the guilt and it is so much better to share them than to store them. To me pictures are memories and they are better shared than stored. I have always loved taking photos and never more than now with children. They chronicle our life and give us a point of reference as to who they are at any given point. They love looking at them and so do I. I am so grateful for your article (sad for your brother) because it makes me realize how important this type of documentation is. Start a yahoogroup with your family members and share photos!
I love looking at my baby pictures (and those of my husbands) and then looking at my baby boy to compare similarities (whose eyes he has, whose nose he has etc. etc.). My dad was a photographer so he took tons and tons of pictures of me and it’s so special to go back and look at them and see the love he has for me.
I can’t imagine not having any baby pictures. My brother and I each have a lovely baby book (not a scrapbook – I’m not young enough for that to have been popular – but a book with photos and a few stories about what we did when we were little), but even if we lost those I know we’d be able to replace many of the pictures with photos from various relatives. I love looking through my baby book, although it’s starting to scare me seeing how much my parents have aged.
That would be so sad! I keep wanting to scan all my old photos, and that would be a good reason to. Thanks for the contest!
I love looking through old photos and reliving great memories of the past. When I look at photos of my husband or myself as a child I can see a part of each of us in our son. It still so amazes me, and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside that he is a part of us.