Two in Tow

People always told me that I would take less pictures of my second child than of my first and even fewer pictures of my third than of my second. For the most part, I hadn’t found this to be true. I have far more baby pictures of Jamie than I do of Josie and much more of Johnny than I do of the other two. I attribute this to me being an experienced mother and being able to recognize how quickly they grow. With each child I tried to take more pictures so I could capture those moments which were all too fleeting. And besides that, I’m honestly just obsessed with capturing my kids’ cuteness for the world to see.

But last night I came to realize why people warned me that I wouldn’t be taking as many pictures after I had more kids. It’s because when you have two in tow, you don’t have a free hand to hold the camera!

The kids were all decked out in their coordinating Christmas outfits for Josie’s preschool Christmas program on Friday night. We dropped Josie off in the upstairs classroom to start warming up and then the boys and I went to the church sanctuary to find good seats to watch her sing. James was playing camera man and found himself a perch in the balcony so that he could get the best shot. This left me with a wiggly infant and a rambunctious toddler. They’re a handful just by themselves and my determination to take pictures in addition to supervising them and watching the program simply complicated the matter.

So I snapped a shot, then told Jamie not to throw his daddy’s jacket on the floor, then snapped another shot, then pried Johnny’s fingers open to release my hair he was pulling, then snapped another shot, then scolded Jamie for standing on a hymnal, then snapped another shot, then wiped the baby spit-up off Johnny’s lip and shirt with James’ new scarf, then snapped another shot, then asked Jamie if he was okay after he bumped his head on the pew, then snapped another shot, then played tug-of-war with Johnny to get the camera out of his grasp, then snapped another shot. Thankfully, mid way through the madness a nice woman in the nearby pew saw my struggle and offered to hold the baby so that I could take some pictures. And before I knew it, Josie’s 9 minute long concert was over.

It wasn’t until the car ride home that I realized how much I’d missed. James was commenting about Josie being the tallest in her class, and saying how funny it was when Josie gave a big yawn in the middle of the first song, and how much he liked it that she kept waving to him during the program. I missed all these things. The things that stood out to me the most were that Johnny’s shirt wouldn’t stay tucked, his overall snaps wouldn’t stay shut, and that I’d barely escaped an embarrassing tantrum when I had to drag Jamie off the stage during the intermission. I was lucky that I got a few poorly lit, un-focused, un-centered photos of Josie at all.

The lesson I learned from the night was that a lot of details slip through the cracks when you have two little boys in tow. Oh well. That’s what camcorder happy husbands are for.