Spring baby

Holy crap I haven’t blogged since December 4th! Bad Ashley, bad!! I need to get on here more often, but I am still having blog shyness. I know my life is over-interesting at this point but I just don’t really know how to write about it anymore. Does that even make sense? I don’t know. I want to start taking more pictures, I think I am starting a 365 project January 1, 2016. After getting and ending so many jobs with my camera, I started to despise it. I want to fall in love with taking pictures again, on a daily and personal basis/level. I attempted a 365 in 2009 and I still enjoy going back and looking at the pictures. It’s such an interesting photo project, gets you out of your comfort zone, and focused on something creative everyday.

This year is going to be even bigger than 2015 was for me because, well, I’m pregnant. That’s the first time I am writing that on an internet level and it’s terrifying but also relieving. I never aspired to be an online mama who over-shares her pregnancy. I recently read blog-moms are the new stage-moms (although I’ll admit, I do read several baby/family blogs). But now that I am pregnant, and I do this whole life-on-the-internet thing.. I am trying to find a graceful way to deal with my big news. I’ve had several friends ask me variations of “how/when are you going to announce online?” ..liz said, “I feel like one day you are just going to have a baby” — To be quite honest here, Joe, not to call him out, doesn’t like actually personal things online and has always had a strong opinion about our one day baby and whether or not we put photos/news online. I share this sentiment, for the most part, not only because I want to protect the baby from as much as I can but also because I want to spend my time with the child and not uploading the child.

We all grew up without social media, without our parents having the chance to upload our every move, or let’s say, every fifth or sixth move. My family have always been documenters, don’t get me wrong. We have volumes of home movies (that if you know me, you have probably been subjected to viewing once or twice …or ten times), family photos out the yin yang. My grandparents were heavy documenters too, so when they passed I inherited the photos they took of us. My nana had a photo album for each grandchild, so when I was at her house it was a regular occurrence to browse through the “Ashley” book at the memories she captured. I have always been enamored with photos and videos and capturing memories. I fully intend on doing that when our little one comes out, as I’ve done with ourselves pre-baby.

That being said, I am trying to formulate a plan. I have switched to a flip phone for my regular every day phone. This way I can leave the iPhone behind when going to a special dinner or the beach, but still be reachable. I have begun to re-familiarize myself with my 35mm camera, so moments can be snapped and developed later, to lose that feeling of instant gratification. Most importantly, I don’t want our child to grow up with a smart phone in their face for them to say “let me see!” after I take a photo. I am afraid that this is causing a new sense of vanity in children and it worries me.

I admit that I had a variant of this vanity as a child. Going to the supermarket to pick up photos, the torture waiting in the car until we got home to look at them was REAL. I loved seeing myself and my family in photos. Usually it was weeks or months after the event, and I hadn’t been the one taking the pictures, the feeling contained a certain amount of magic. The same goes with home movies, which I have only recently begun to grow out of obsessively watching. I always loved watching my family as a family, to see our personalities from afar and be a fly on the wall to an event that had already taken place. This was personified after my parent’s divorce in 1998 (which I’ve never fully gotten over). My dad’s approach is much appreciated, setting the video camera up and letting it roll on Christmas mornings or during Thanksgiving dinner, or a random breakfast while my parents are doing laundry, and the occasional play in the back yard on a Summer day. It gives us now a treasured view of what those fleeting moments were like, regular conversations and interactions between family members gone or grown. I want to give my child that. I want to have footage for them, meaningful, sincere for my children to look back and see how they grew up.

This means changing the way that I document things myself, putting more time and effort into making sure I print photos, and put together videos as a keepsake, and also a cognitive and organized method of documenting. As I type this I have files upon freaking files of photos and videos I have shot the past ten years that all live within a computer (or three). At this point, these files would take me months to sort through and probably over $1,000 to print and put into books. What do I do with all of this? Hell if I know. Sneak peek, that’s actually my New Years Resolution, to deal with my existing media before baby comes. Because then, I will be focused on family media and try to deal with it every season, to book it and archive it. I have a feeling in this day and age so many children don’t have family albums being created for them, and it makes me sad. Not only for the children but for the children’s children’s children. Because these are the things that make heirlooms and create a legacy, and as a society we have stopped doing this.

So there ya go, off I went, making a little pregnancy announcement into a digital proclamation. I’d love to hear your thoughts on a low media child rearing. Or I’d also love to hear why you put your child online or where you draw the line. I understand a lot of people do this to keep up with family and friends that live far away. The above was not meant as a judgement but more of a rant and rave about my own feelings.

Our little is due early May.
I can’t wait to meet my Spring baby.
We are waiting to find out the sex. <3