Photos & Prose

I was just thinking how very much of family life most people's family photos miss. It can't only be me who goes quizzical every time I click to playback mode, eyes narrowing and lips twisting in frustration as I wonder where is the moment I saw when I pressed the shutter?

The real story is so often a little above or below what we capture in a snapshot, just to the left, or out of focus, teasingly beyond the bit frozen for posterity.

(An aside: It may be that I'm simply not a skilled or practiced-enough photographer -- granted! But I've seen a lot of pictures emailed to me and posted on Facebook, and I really think I'm onto something about the difference between what the casual photographer must feel and what the machine captures.)

Most of us get can compromise without too much trouble. We understand we're not pros, and "good enough" snapshots are really OK. "Most of us" are pretty well-adjusted. I, however, am almost always disappointed by my own snapshots. Because I don't like good enough. I want the WHOLE story -- and for me, it takes some prose along with the photos to save the technical failures.

And that's too bad, because I haven't scrapbooked (digitally or otherwise) anything for myself in a LONG time. Like, right now, even, I'm forgetting things that I would hold as dear memories later, if I just found the time to match some daily images to some words.

Tonight, all I can manage are a few inadequate grafs:
* Owen's vocabulary is wide and varied, and his mispronunciations of brand names and household products get funnier all the time. I have pinky-sworn the other Brandt boys not to correct him or laugh (too much) because he'll quickly catch on and start saying everything exactly. I need to keep a notepad out in the kitchen and try to track all the funny words over the course of a week. One common Owenism right now: "I M'AM" instead of "I am." And EVERY WORD used in past tense has an "-ed" sound, even when tacked onto the real (not "-ed") ending. Also, everything that happened not today is "yesterday" -- or, really, "yes-sir-day." (We thought he was saying yes-sir-Dave for a while.) And everything that hasn't happened yet is "tomorrow." Or, well, "to-mard-doe." Oh, and adorable things (like puppies and babies and sometimes my outfits) are "Awwww... coot, Mama! So coot (cute)!"


* Miles has been very slow to lose teeth, and when he does, his new ones are slow to fill in. I find the gaps strangely adorable. It's not the perfect-smile Miles face that we've memorized in years of scanning that face as his parents -- but it is JUST. SO. IMPERFECTLY. CUUUTE! I love to see him at this stage and I only regret that his snapshot images are becoming more "posed" and "cool" than natural. His smile is different in pictures, too. More cheesy grin -- like some manufactured version of the real thing -- than natural bi-product of a laugh. ...But his secret Miles giggle is still pure gold. And he cracks himself up a lot.

God bless these boys for putting up with me, camera in their faces at every holiday and event, as I strain for the right angle and direct them to redo something I don't think I got.

So my images aren't going to be as real as being there?! Well, they just aren't. Maybe all I can do right now is show up, as many days and ways as I can, and trust that when I do get around to writing our stories, the snapshots I got will be enough to spark the memories. And when that happens, the prose will come.