Happy Birthday!

Every year I try to capture a picture of AJ that epitomizes his character, a picture that says…this IS AJ. When I started the process I wanted to create a photo wall, or at least album of AJ through the years that captured how he has grown and how he has changed, similar to a lifebook.

I started the process with a picture my husband took on the first day we met him. It was not his birthday but two months before his birthday. To me though, it was…it was the first day I met him and in essence, his birthday.

When we went back to the orphanage the director gave me a picture of his first birthday and I thought it was the most beautiful picture in the world, as I don’t have anything before the day I met him (except, of course for the referral picture and a few the orphanage sent me).

When he was two (just two months before his second birthday) he was wide-eyed and full of fear.

On his second birthday the orphanage gave him a present that we left for him and took pictures with a camera we left for them. In the pictures that they sent us he looks much less fearful and much more calm. He is even playful and happy in many of them. We did not get the pictures until November because I still had some pictures to take on the camera and did not develop them until then. It was a nice surprise to get them.

When he turned three he was mischievous. This picture hangs at the bottom of our stairs in the main hallway of our home because it is one of my favorites. The first black and white hangs in the same hallway and IS my favorite picture of him, as it captures his true “orphanage” child personality…the one he came to us with. This picture is the first formal picture I have of him that shows his breakthrough of that child and starts to show us his personality. He was just then, at 10 months home, starting to break out of his shell and show us that he could be a little boy. There were only glimpses of it at that point but it gave me a glimmer of hope.

When he turned four he was full of wonder and questions. I loved this picture last year. My mother does not like the picture because he looks so bald but I love his shaved head. In fact, I would keep it short all the time if people would let me. This chair was left by our previous home owners (he made it) and it is just the right size for AJ. It currently sits under our beautiful white crab apple tree, which he was looking up at when I snapped the picture.

This year, as he turns five…I see spark, character, laughter, rowdiness, and that same mischievous nature I saw two years ago. I am not one for posed pictures, as you can see. I don’t think posed shots capture the essence of children, their character, or their personality.Sure, every once in a while I think a good old Sears photo is worth the $20 but candids are worth far more when it comes to spirit and evoking emotion.

Yesterday, AJ decided that while I was watering the flowers that he needed to have his shark goggles . He ran inside, traded his glasses for his prized goggles and asked to help water the flowers. I, in turn, ran to get my camera. After about 100 shots I managed to get this one. The moment (and I do mean the moment) I snapped it I knew it was the one.