Those of us who are firstborns know that it’s true: we have
more pictures in our photo albums than our younger siblings. If the fact that we
have two hundred pictures before we’re a year old while they have ten isn’t
obvious enough for us, our younger siblings are quick to point that fact out. Even
after decades. It’s a sore point of family conversations about being the middle
or youngest child versus the oldest. My siblings don’t let me live it down – as
if I was the one holding the camera and taking “selfies” (before the word even
came into existence).
Today I’m not sure how that balances out. For today we carry
cameras with us nearly 24/7 thanks to smart phones. Today I capture nearly
every moment of Emry’s life with the phone in my pocket. She has two hundred
pictures (or more!) and she’s just three months old. Not to mention short video
clips of her just being cute. I guess if we have a second child I’ll find out
how quick I am to pull out my phone, but I imagine it will break almost even.
Convenience makes it easy.
But what isn’t easy is getting those pictures printed. Ed
can post them on Facebook. I put them on this blog. And it’s easy to text them
to any adoring grandparent, aunt or uncle the moment they’re taken. Nearly
everyone “important” gets to see her newest cute gesture. And while I have
getting some of these hundreds of pictures printed for a scrapbook or album in
the back of my head, I don’t rush them off to Shutterfly the next week. Storing
them on my phone is the 21st Century equivalent of my mom’s pile of
film canisters in need of development on her desk. Very back burner.
But I realized a couple of weeks ago that I need to be
better about printing pictures. For neither grandmother has a smart phone.
Grandma Sturm could look at Grandpa Sturm’s phone. And Grandma Camus gets to
see her every month or less. But when my mom pointed out she has no pictures of
Emry in the house or to take to her friend’s, I realized I had failed in this
area of being a new mother. So, Emry and I went to Target and got a few printed
for the short haul. Meanwhile, I need to look through the hundreds of images on
my laptop and see if I should get any of them printed. Which will only take an
hour or so…
Sometimes I actually miss film.
No, we’re not smelling something bad…she does this when she’s tired and
ready to fall asleep.
My little personal trainer. This look is from after we got home from
our run and says, “Why have we stopped? I said ten miles, not four!”
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