Seeing

I love to take pictures.  I love to look at the world through the lens of a camera.  I get much joy from seeing the beautiful objects around me, and then magnifiying them with my camera lens. 

But I noticed something over the past six weeks.  I didn't take many pictures.  For lent, I gave up blogging, along with other things.  This left me with no place to show and tell stories through my camera lens, so I basically stopped. In fact I didn't take a single picture for the first two weeks of lent and I could tell someithing was missing.  I missed seeing little fingers clutched around a spoon, or eyes focused on pushing a car around the room.  Of course I still saw everyting my children were doing, I just wasn't seeing it.

It's so easy for me to be present with my children.  I'm with half of them all day long.  Every hour.  I greet them in the morning as they are waking and I am with them when they shut their eyes and fall asleep after a long day.  But it's different when you look at them from behind the camera lens.  I love to get really close and take pictures of bits and pieces of them.  Hands, eyes, hair, feet, shoes.  And so while I briefly posponed taking the pictures, I felt like I wasn't taking the time to see my children.  Taking pictures and blogging bring me joy.  They really do.  I get to sit back and look at all that God has blessed us with.  I get to really see it.  I never want to get too accustomed to our blessings, our children, home, health, TJ's job, the fact that I am home with them all day, for granted.  I want to keep looking and watching our children closely, capturing their littleness.....forever.