the photos I didn't take

We were invited to a cookout at our neighbors' house on Saturday night, and we took Nico with us. They have a lovely well-groomed fenced-in backyard, with nice soft grass and graveled paths. We turned Nico loose and let him roam, and he spent at least an hour toddling through the grass and pawing through (and attempting to eat) the gravel and driving his trucks up and down and stomping on the plants (not much, luckily). He got grass stains on his jeans and dirt under his nails (and on his face), but there are no photos. I thought about going across the street to get the camera, but I made the conscious decision not to fetch it. As much as I want to document all the fun things Nico's doing, the way he looks now, these moments we are sharing, I feel like sometimes it's important to watch him with my own eyes instead of through the screen of my digital camera. As much as I love to photograph him, it felt good to be fully present and not thinking about how to frame the perfect shot.

So there aren't photos, but I want to remember Nico with his cheeks stuffed full of banana slices, signing for more; careening around the grass with his dinosaur-print sun hat on his head; reacting with perplexed despair when the tiny pebble he dropped fell through a crack in the deck and disappeared.

We had a cookout at our house tonight and I did take a few pictures, just a few shots of my tiny boy in motion. It was his first time playing in the backyard and he was thrilled. I suspect we'll be spending a lot of time out there this summer. (And now MB and I are daydreaming about building a deck...maybe someday.)






Reading:  The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

Playing:  The King is Dead by the Decemberists