Over here, in this small world of ours, we are trying to take it just one day at a time.  Looking at the big picture is entirely way too overwhelming.  

When things get tough, sometimes voices resonate in my head–telling me that I should put away the camera.  That I shouldn’t lounge in the grass next to my little boy on a blanket, watching my bigger boy laughing through life while my shutter goes click, click through the merry minutes.  The voice tells me that I should be folding those clothes that have been on the dryer for over a week.  It tells me that I should go wash the dishes.  It tells me a million things. . . but you know what?  Sometimes I just ignore it, and I take twenty pictures of my littles doing the same things.  Because each image is so very different.  A slight change of the feet.  A little smirk that wasn’t there a second before.  A sparkle in the eyes that I would’ve missed if I didn’t press my shutter button just one more time.  I watch my husband pouring chemicals into the pool and think that I should be up and helping him with it.  But then I remember that I, too, am doing something important.  I am creating something that will be treasured for years.  Through generations.  For as long as we are on this earth . . . we will remember these precious moments.   

And in thirty years, when our children are no longer living under the same roof as us, I will be able to go back through time and be right here again–in this very place.  I will be able to see the little piggy toes.  The toddler smiles.  The toothless grins and the look on the face of a baby that tells me that I am the most important thing on the earth to him.  

I will be able to picture the teeny hands grasping for colorful objects.  The little fish lips that tell me that my little baby is connecting things in his world. 

And to go back in time and remember how priceless the moment was when my son asked me if he could help make sandwiches for dinner.  And how carefully he tried to fold his bologna in half so it would fit within the boundaries of the bread.  How his little knife tried to spread the sticky peanut butter all over, but only managed to remain in one blob right in the middle.  

Even if I am completely bewildered and horrified that I might wake up on one random morning and find that he had colored all over himself, his sheets and his wall with markers, (there’s no way that this horrific event just might have happened on a day like today . . . errrr.) and if I go upstairs to find that after he has pooped, decided to empty the entire contents of the toilet paper roll into a big heap on the floor because it just wouldn’t tear off into a normal sized piece for him . . . whatever tough things get thrown into my direction, it will be okay.  If I just take it one day at a time.  And click-click my shutter through the memory-makers of the day.  Then remembering the best moments will be easier, and forgetting the not so perfect moments will be easier.  And we will remember just how very happy our family was.