On Being An 'Experience-er'.

I have this love/hate relationship with my phone (mainly Instagram). I take loads and loads of beautiful photos of my boys and my life daily, but my 'real' camera sits in its bag collecting dust. I haven't quite figured this whole two-kid business out quite yet. When Oliver was a baby, I didn't have a smart phone or a DSLR, so my little point and shoot camera was always in-hand, but I never, ever lacked photos of him (if you ask anyone who was around me while he was a baby, they can tell you that I constantly had a camera shoved in his sweet, little, blue-eyed baby face). When I bought my DSLR, I started taking hundreds of photos daily. Literally. I have an overabundance of photos of Oliver as he grew from infant to toddler, then toddler to child. So, why am I having such a hard time picking up my camera and actually shooting now? I want to make certain that Dexter never feels the 'second child syndrome' that is so often talked about, so in fairness, I need to be taking more photos of our every day.

But...life takes over, the current keeps pushing us, and time slips away. We stay afloat. We still have those delicious moments of sweet baby smiles, fort-building, whispers and tickles under our stark white sheets, piggy-back rides, whisker rubs, and mushy 'I love you's after nighttime prayers, but I've become less dependent on capturing each and every moment, and become more of a do-er, feel-er, experience-er as a mum. I want to be there. I want to witness things without having to look through the small window of my camera. So, I guess that's that. I guess that's why I've been slacking; I've just been taking a moment to step back, breathe deeply, and experience life in a very real, un-rehearsed, un-staged way.

It's pretty lovely kissing toes instead of photographing them. It's pretty lovely hearing my boy's wonderful and imaginative story-telling and tickling him before scurrying off into his room to tuck him into bed...and not always telling him to 'Look over here, babe! Let me take a picture!'.

But, in fairness...the boys still need these photos. I still need them. I need them so that the next time I look at my tall, lanky almost-five-year-old and think 'Where has the time gone?', I can flip through the pages of our life with tears stinging my cheeks, saying 'Ah, yes. Here are the moments. Here is this sliver of his life that we shared.'...

As for what we've been up to lately: lots of sweat-soaked afternoons and evenings spent in the summer heat, cool nights in the air conditioning snuggling little brother under a blanket, popsicles melting down the little's dirty hands, zoo trips, books before bedtime, a camping trip in the hills, a five day stretch without Daddy while he was in West Virginia for a Roaster's Guild Retreat, iced espresso drinks, getting pressed up to Andrew in our disheveled bed at night because Dexter can be quite the bed-hog, nights with the four of us all sweetly slumbering in the same room because Oliver had a nightmare, and...loving the heck out of each other until the chaos of the school year begins again. My cup runneth over and I am just ever so thankful. God is good to us.

Very good.

Cheers.