It's official.

I'm pregnant.

Change

We all know change can be tough, but it happens so often with children, daily it seems, that you have no choice but to get used to it. Or, take pictures as often as possible, like I do. The problem with that is that every time you reflect back on images you've taken, you are hit even harder with the fact that you can never get back what was. Sometimes I get panicky when I haven't taken any pictures in a while, and I realize all of a sudden that three weeks have passed, and I didn't document a single moment of it...and the only thing harder to handle than looking at photographs of passed days is feeling guilty because you don't have any.
     That's the way it's been the past month or so...I've totally fallen off my wagon. We even went and did the Lake Placid training camp that we do every year without bringing a camera. I was appalled at myself for not only seeing images as they were happening and not being able to capture them, but the fact that I even thought to bring the camera and then dismissed it! Oh what horrible mother am I. In my own defense, I am tired and pregnant and didn't want to have to look after a 2.5 year old AND a camera. But now, of course, regrets.
      In any case, the picture below was taken in May...back when we had a string of really nice days, and I got to the beach with Beck and it was a 20 degree difference. Burr. Looking at it makes me sad, already, for the little boy that he is and the toddler he is leaving behind. I suppose it's that I know, 20 years from now, this picture will make me REALLY sad, and I will long for the days when he was this age. But, I think that it's good to have those feelings...it brings us to appreciate the present perhaps a little more than we would. The ability to hang onto a moment in time with a photograph is such a gift. I know that in 20 years, I will be glad I took this photograph, and will hopefully still be able to remember what it's like to hold his little body in my lap, chattering about the seagulls and "smoke" in the air.
       So, all tears aside, there's a moral here: Take pictures. Lots of them. All the time.