My two-year-old daughter stops to smell flowers on a warm spring day.
My three-month-old son raises his arm wearing Buzz Lightyear pajamas as if he’s ready to blast off.
The two of them sit together mesmerized by a book on her lap even though neither can read.
My days as a stay-at-home dad are full of picture-worthy moments and I can’t stop reaching for my camera.
I don’t want to miss a single precious moment, which is hard because everything feels precious.
I’ll leave the camera at home during a trip to the playground telling myself to just enjoy the moment when suddenly my toddler wants to zip down the slide that previously terrified her.
So, I pack the camera. Just in case.
More pictures probably existed of my first-born child before she turned six months old than have ever existed of me, a forty-year-old man.
I thought my picture-snapping enthusiasm would slow down when my second child arrived because everyone takes less pictures of a second-born but it’s actually tripled.
In addition to the individual pictures of each kid, I also want ones of the relationship developing between them.
Son and daughter holding hands? I take a picture because I might never see it again once sibling rivalry kicks in.
Or, maybe they’ll be lifelong best friends and this picture will be a reminder of how far back their special bond goes.
Whether they’re smiling at each other or glaring at each other, I want proof.
I don’t know if I’m striving for immortality or so smitten with my kids that I believe the world needs sixty-three pictures of my daughter trying to hold a frog-shaped umbrella over her head but it’s nearly impossible for me to resist capturing something every day.
One of the beauties of photography is that while you can fully control the camera, you can never fully control the scene both in the moment the picture’s being taken and way down the line when the picture’s seen again.
It’s impossible to know how a photograph will age. If my daughter becomes a meteorologist, those frog umbrella pictures might be one of her most cherished possessions decades from now.
There are so many developing aspects to my kids’ personalities that I want to catch them all.
How amazing would the picture of my daughter in Groucho Marx glasses be if she ends up becoming a comedian, or how perfect would the pictures of her swinging a bat for the first time be if she ends up as softball MVP of the Women’s College World Series?
I’m as guilty as anyone of posing my baby in ridiculous outfits while my wife shakes a rattle over my head but the candid shots are my favorites.
I want to record my kids as they are now so in the future I can see the origins of the people they eventually become.
I haven’t deluded myself into thinking every picture I take is precious or that generations of Gaffneys will look back at how we celebrated Easter in 2019.
But I know someday, I will.
And it will bring me immeasurable happiness remembering how uncomfortable the Easter Bunny made my newborn daughter and how excited my wife and I were to put out a third basket for the first time.
Everyone I know with grown up kids tells me to cherish every moment while they’re young. Though it’s oftentimes obtrusive and exhaustingly annoying, my incessant picture-taking is my best attempt to do just that.
So forgive me if you see my laying in the wood chips at the playground shouting for my daughter to “look over here, MICKEY MOUSE!” or sneaking to the back of storytime to catch her making the wipers on the bus go “swish, swish, swish.”
It may seem like just a normal everyday moment, but it’s picture perfect to me.
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