Photographs

Declan was being a bit rambunctious last night so I turned off his TV and pulled out some of our photo albums for him to look through with me. The original goal was to show him some of the sights for our upcoming trip to England and then I started actually looking at some of the pictures that we have and were able to keep safe from the flood.

It's funny to watch a 3 year old go through these keepsakes and not know what to do with them. He saw Andrea and I from almost 10 years ago when we got our first apartment and didn't understand that it was where we lived at the time. He saw Andrea's cousin Jacob as a baby and thought that he was Rhys because they actual do look alike. It was funny to see him recognize things that we were doing at the cottage with the kids before he came along as things that we do with him now. Seeing the Kincardine Pipe Band parade, making sand castles and going to the family reunion.

What shocked me were the pictures that I had totally forgot about. Pictures of Mike, Mike and I in Los Angeles after the infamous shaving cream fight (I don't think we ever did get all of the gel off the walls or the floor), and the pics of Saibal's wedding (which I attended after having a gig at a house party in the middle of nowhere on no sleep whatsoever). There are pictures of Andrea and me in Quebec City freezing our butts off but having a blast and also walking around rainy London with Victor (the day that we drunkenly decided to by a Louis Vuitton clutch!).

I showed Declan pics of me with my Grandmother and explained that we are going to go meet her in a month. He was slightly confused but honestly interested in who she was. I showed him my Grandfather's photo which is actually a picture of the last time that I saw him before he passed away. It was a wonderful meal with my family in England.

I was lucky enough to see my grandparents a handful of times over the years when they were able to visit us and was blessed with my Grandmother being able to come to out wedding. I am incredibly excited that she will be able to meet her first Canadian Great-Grandson and hope that maybe in a couple of years she will be able to meet her second one as well. I can't wait to have photos of those visits.

One of the funniest pictures was of me with blond hair. Declan had no idea who I was and didn't really believe it was me when I told him so.

It was interesting to see the pictures of our house from before we actually moved in. The reno work we did changed it dramatically for the better and I remembered all the help that our friends and family gave us to get it ready in such short order. Amazing when I think about it. We took possession of that house on December 1st, did the renovations for 2 weeks and then moved in on the 15th. We had our house warming party on the 17th which is madness! It was wonderful though.

I also realized that we are blessed to have so many photographs of our families. We have lots of Andrea's Grandmother at the cottage, lots of the Jacob, including the first time he stayed at our apartment (which ended up with me going to Andrea's parents at 3 in the morning because Jake had actually thrown up all over the place and we had no laundry facilities).

There is something marvelously simple about the photo album. I forgot how much I love opening them up. Something gets lost when you are just scrolling through the pictures on a computer monitor, you can't touch them, turn the pages, hear the binding on the spine crack. What I really found remarkable was that Declan sat there with me going through all of those pictures, asked the questions that he had about them and enjoyed the answers and the stories that I shared with them about them.