An Epiphany...

When we went to the Polar Express, I was super bummed that I forgot my camera. So many great photo opportunities there! I had my phone, and I figured that I would just use that. Well, because the train was so bumpy, all my phone pics were blurry and weird. I just gave up early on, and put my phone away. I sat with the girls, they sat on my lap, we read the book together, we enjoyed our hot chocolate and cookies, we snuggled, we danced, etc...The whole time I was experiencing all these things with them, there was a typical "mom-arazzi" taking about 600 pictures. She was posing her family, making them redo certain "cute moments", therefore making them staged and fake. She was getting mad because her daughter wanted to look out the window of the train instead of looking at her and smiling. She posed her son and her mother in various different positions to get it just right. Unfortunately for her, that meant that she didn't sit down once with her kids for the entire hour train ride. She didn't sing one song with them, she didn't hug them, and she barely spoke to them. I don't say all that to judge this mom or say that she was doing a horrible job of parenting. I say it because I saw myself in her. I don't think that I was ever quite that obsessed, but I do know that there have been plenty of moments, dance recitals, performances, etc that I have "missed" because I have been looking through a camera lens. I mean, pictures are important to help us remember those wonderful memories, but aren't the memories themselves more important? If we aren't a part of those pictures we are taking, we surely aren't a part of the action, the place where real memories are being made. Do I want my kids to look at pictures one day and say, "Man, my mom got a great shot here. I mean, look at that lighting?!?" Or would I rather have them remember me singing and dancing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" up and down the aisles of the train acting like a fool right along side of them? Pretty sure it would be the second!
So, with that lesson being learned, I will try to take a couple good pictures, then I will put the camera away and enjoy every moment that I have with these wonderful people I get to be with everyday of my life!