December 15 14

A long time ago, when Miss Emily was just a wee little thing, we received a giant video camera as a gift.

Back in 2001—in the technological olden days—when we didn’t have iphones or affordable digital cameras, I would click, click, click my way through a 24-photo roll of film (36 if I was lucky) on my point-and-shoot camera and race to a one-hour photo place to have my precious photos developed as quickly as possible. I would race through the developed pictures to find the one or two possiblymaybe usable shots where my baby girl had her eyes open or where my giant post-pregnancy boobs were not too, too on display (we were a family-friendly household, after all).

I tossed most of the shots into a drawer of photos that would never see the inside of a baby album, but, of course, would never see the inside of a garbage can either. I couldn’t bear to part with these horrible photos. Interesting, isn’t it? I cannot delete those unflattering puppies off of my iphone camera fast enough. But I have a drawer in my home full of blinking shots of my perfect infant. And they have traveled with us from our first apartment, to our first home, to our current home. And they will likely travel with us to our forever home.

And that video camera. Oh, we used that video camera to document absolutely nothing exciting.

And then it got shelved in the technology graveyard in the basement, right alongside our VCR, cd player, and cassette tapes.

We pulled the tapes out this week. I haven’t watched any of those videos since they were filmed. I haven’t thought about some of these moments since they happened.

2001.

2002.

2003.

The first time Emily crawled across our tiny 900-square-foot apartment.

The time I tried to put Emily to bed and she just laughed and cackled at me all “Oh, you think I’m going to bed woman!”

The time we brought Joshua home from the hospital.

The time Emily took off Josh’s hat. And then put it back on. And then it took it off again. And then put it back on again. And then took it off again. And then knocked him over. And then he started crying.

The time Emily danced to the Bear in the Big Blue House and Jackson 5 homemade mashup.

The time we tried to take all of the cousins to Sears for a family photo.

The time Emily gave a toddler-ized tour of our old apartment.

That day that Emily got 1,001 splinters on our new wood porch.

The time Emily sat in grass for the first time.

How Emily looked when she woke up from a nap, all bed-headed and disheveled, with a giant smile on her face.

These small moments. They were nothing at the time. Nothing grand, nothing that necessarily was film-worthy at the time.

Not film-worthy, really.

Until I watched them this week.

And I am so thankful for these nothing moments.

I feel like parents spend so much time filming the presentations, the graduations, the Hanukkah plays, the BIG moments. But it’s those small moments that I sure am glad I have. Because I guarantee you I will never watch an entire 2-hour kindergarten graduation video ever again in my entire life. But I would sit and watch a clip of my little girl doing nothing but sitting in the grass about eight thousand times.

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  1. My dad video taped a ton of stuff when I was younger, like in the really awkward tween and early teen years. We’ll watch now and crack up! I’d never let anyone see it, but it is awesome, nonetheless!

    Comment by Kristabella on December 15, 2014
  2. ha .. I could have written this post! Of course .. our babies are the same age. Everything you wrote I did (including the rushing to the store for the 1 hr printing, anxious to see the prints .. and then realizing that 3/4 of the were not so good).

    But make sure you transfer them all to dvd – don’t do like my parents did when they let their 8 mm alone for 30 yrs and now, its in pieces!

    Comment by sarah on December 15, 2014
  3. Yes, yesyesyesyesyes. I recently had to switch phones and instead of housing thousands of pics in the “cloud” never to be seen again, I randomly selected a couple hundred thumbnails from my gallery and got them printed. Old-fashioned family album-caliber snapshots that I’m so glad I have.

    Comment by Rebecca on December 17, 2014
  4. I’m getting a new phone in a few weeks and my goal over the break is to get some of those phone photos printed!

    Comment by ali on December 17, 2014
  5. Love this post. My daughter is 7 months new & I take pics & videos constantly. I love watching the “nothing special” moments. I found an ap called Mosaic, and now each month I spend the $30 to pick out my top 20 pics from my phone & the ap makes me an album. Funny how important capturing moments becomes…I don’t even care if the quality is grainy, etc. I just want to freeze my beautiful baby girl in time bc she’s already growing up at a breakneck speed.

    Comment by Cheryl Harrison on December 20, 2014
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