Pictures of You
Thoughts on the occasion of my youngest child's birthday
Before my kids were born, I was terrified of the concept of being a parent.
I mean, being responsible for a whole human? Me? The guy who once fell through a plate-glass balcony door because my roommates and I were having a who-can-spin-this-desk-chair-fastest competition? How could I possibly take care of a small child, let alone multiple?
Against all odds, however, I managed.
I figured out how to change diapers and clean bottles and sing babies to sleep despite having the worst singing voice in human history. I gave piggy-back rides and told terrible jokes and perfected the art of pratfalling for a laugh when it was needed most. I learned the exact right amount of time to microwave a hot dog, the precise level of scrambling an egg should receive, and that “you can hide butternut squash in mac and cheese, your kids won’t notice” is a bald-faced lie.
(They knew, and they reminded me of it for years.)
Along the way, though, I developed a new fear.
What will I do when they’re *not* my little babies anymore?
This past weekend, my daughter—the younger of our two children—turned eight years old. We marked the occasion with a family trip to Chicago, where we treated her to all manner of big-girl things: a trip to the hair salon and the American Girl store, dinner at a nice restaurant, visits to the Field Museum and the Art Institute.
On her actual birthday, one of my oldest and dearest friends brought his family over to our hotel to share in pizza, birthday cake and the indoor swimming pool. I didn’t even pack a bathing suit, knowing full well that my kids would be plenty entertained in the pool without me; it hadn’t even occurred to me to swim with them.
When my friend ducked away to change into his suit, then, I was a bit surprised. That is, until I remembered his youngest is only three years old. Of course he was going to have to get in. He spent most of the pool time serving as a tugboat for a flotilla of children, and after they left, I reflected wistfully to my wife on our kids’ rapidly-disappearing youth.
God, I miss them being that age.
I’m a shameless sentimentalist. You already know this about me, and hopefully it’s an endearing quality. It’s not something I can change, anyway,
My phone’s camera roll is full of tens of thousands of photos. A good chunk of them are food, a smaller-but-notable chunk are pictures of dogs, and a not-insignificant amount are old work photos of banal construction site progress that I really need to clear out.
The vast majority, though, are pictures of my kids.
I’m constantly snapping photos, and not just posed ones. I capture candid pictures whenever I can, in some vain and feeble attempt to freeze time. Some are memorable, of course—I caught a lucky picture of my daughter thoughtfully considering Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte this weekend that I’ll cherish forever—but most are just quick little slice-of-life moments, photos I’ll forget about entirely until I’m scrolling through my phone looking for something else and suddenly find myself blindsided by the difference between then and now.
Ohh, I miss her wearing that dress.
Look at that smile!
She still fit on my shoulders back then!
Remember what a nightmare that play kitchen was to put together? But they loved it!
I can’t believe how big they’re getting.
I’ve always been a big fan of time-travel stories.
The Back to the Future trilogy were some of the first movies I ever loved. Time After Time is a terrific book, and Somewhere In Time a wonderful movie that’s only kinda-sorta a rip-off of the book’s conceit. Peggy Sue Got Married, 13 Going on 30, The Terminator, Hot Tub Time Machine… if there’s a time-shifting plot, well, I’m already sold.
One of my favorites is a movie I can hardly bear to watch now, and that’s About Time.
A work of diabolical emotional terrorism wrapped in the innocuous guise of a romantic comedy, the 2013 film features Domhnall Gleason as Tim, a young man who learns that the men in his family possess the innate ability to travel back in time to any previous moment in their lives. (This information is relayed to him by his father, the always-excellent Bill Nighy.)
I won’t spoil the plot if you haven’t seen it, but I don’t think it’s giving away too much to say that the young man eventually realizes the drawbacks of reliving the past—it prevents you from embracing the present you’re in now.
My kids are in fourth and second grade this year.
Academically, I know that’s still young. They still love stuffed animals. They still sleep with their doors cracked open, and still get scared at night and come out in need of a hug. They still—at least as far as I know—believe in Santa Claus, though some cracks are starting to show in that facade.
(That’s a column for another day, one that I fear isn’t too far off.)
Despite all that, there’s been a pronounced shift this year. They don’t feel like little kids anymore. They’ve got complex emotions now. They show bursts of creativity and depths of knowledge that blow me away. They’ve got their own friends, their own personalities, their own conceptions of the world that for the first time aren’t wholly rooted in my own conception of the world. (They use slang I no longer understand.)
They’re becoming people all their own.
It’s a tired cliche to say that the days are long but the years are short, but it’s also absolutely true—it feels like only yesterday that I was bringing them home from the hospital, and I’m already upset about the idea of them going off to college someday.
Time is moving fast, and there’s nothing that I can do to stop it.
Every once in a while, I find myself falling down a hole in my camera roll.
I’ll scroll back a year, then two, then five and eight. I’ll marvel at how tiny they were then, how adorable they looked on Christmas morning or on their first trip to the beach or on a simple visit to the grocery store. I’ll swell with nostalgia and longing for the people they were then, wishing I could crawl into the picture and squeeze them tight again. I’ll show them these pictures, and tell them about what they were like back then. I tell them how cute they were. I tell them about moments that to me happened seemingly just yesterday, but to them are forgotten ancient history.
They’ll look on obligingly and roll their eyes a little at how much of a sap their dad is.
I want to tell them the rest, though. I want to tell them:
I cherish those moments, more than you’ll probably ever know. I miss who you were then—I miss the warm baby asleep on my shoulder. I miss the tiny hands that would grasp my shirt as I carried you around on my hip. I miss the mop-headed dude and pigtailed pixie whose any injury could be healed with a bounce in my arms and a kiss on the cheek.
Those moments will be with me forever, and they were the privilege of my life to share with you.
And I wouldn’t even think of giving up who you are now to have them back.
—Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)
Thanks for making me tear up (I don't even have kids!) in the waiting room at my dentist. Great job with the emotional terrorism this fine morning
I’ve had a nickname for ours since shortly after she was born, and I’ve been dreading the day that she sternly looks at me and tells me that she’s not that baby anymore.
Granted, I’m already plotting to put it in mental storage until just before I walk her down the aisle at her wedding someday. Emotional terrorism Uno reverse!