“Mum, can I have a snack?”
Such a familiar phrase and yet it totally threw me. Mum? Where did that come from? When did I suddenly stop being Mummy?
I knew it would happen but it still really knocked me for six. My little boy is growing up and I want it to stop!
So proud of his first teeth
Then there were the teeth. After all the traumas of baby teething, it has always seemed a bit harsh that, just few years later they loose all those hard earned teeth. But that’s hardly news is it? I mean, we’ve all been through the wobbly tooth - tooth under pillow - fairy arrival thing (since when did she charge so much? Who negotiated that deal?!). The first few teeth fell out and it didn’t really bother me, so I really wasn’t prepared to be so sentimental when the top front teeth dropped out. Yet it suddenly made me realise we were in the midst of another milestone. Those little teeth are now gone forever and he’ll never look quite the same again. One of them had a slight chip in it from a particularly nasty toddler fall onto a stone floor. At the time, I was devastated about it, but it became part of him and part of his story.
“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory”
It’s little events like these that really emphasise to me that the years vanish so quickly and once they’ve passed a phase or milestone, it’s gone forever. Whatever it is - first smile, first steps, first tooth, first day at school, that’s it - done. I cannot even begin to imagine how that first-night-at-university or that first-day-having-left-home will feel.
As you can imagine, as a family photographer, I have a lot of photos of every stage….too many!! Most of them I just need to delete off my phone, but as every milestone recedes into the distance, I become more and more convinced of the need to capture some of those images in a tangible form. As I have blogged about before, I always make a point of compiling a photo book every year. Its a faff, I‘ve got to be honest, but as the years go by, I become more grateful that I’ve done it.
First time in a train engine was a BIG hit for a transport obsessed little boy. Does that every change?
Soon the memories and pictures of childhood will be all that’s left as our tiny babies fly the nest.
How long can I realistically expect to be called Mummy anyway?
However big he gets, there’ll always be the memories of when I was still ‘Mummy’
That classic ‘gappy’ smile is actually a really small moment in time. The new teeth come through so quickly and it’s over, gone in a flash. (fortunately the self-inflicted, lockdown haircut was short-lived too!)
If you would like me to capture some images of your family, whatever the milestone they are at, then get in touch and we can have an informal chat.