Honolulu Portrait Studio Photographer | Let them be kids
Let them be kids! They grow up so quickly. As my own children are becoming adults, it is bitter sweet to look back and wonder where the time has gone. My eldest is now 20. And my youngest just turned 13. Somedays, I look at my friends and cousins posting photos of their young children and it makes me wish I could go back and have that time again with my own children. I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t change anything. I absolutely would. My grandmother and mother would tell me all the time to relax and enjoy them while they are young, they grow up so fast. Don’t blink, before you know it they will be grown. These were such foreign concepts to me when my children were younger. I was exhausted. And so I subconsciously wished a good part of their lives away.
I wish, I wish…
When our first daughter was born, she was 9 weeks early. A tiny 3 lb 1 oz baby girl who spent the first 7 weeks of her life in the Neonatal Unit. Not exactly the way you want to start motherhood. I probably spent the first 2 years of her life silently wishing. Praying she would get well enough to leave the hospital. Wishing she would reach all of her milestones on schedule or as close as possible. I couldn’t wait for her to crawl or walk and talk. As she grew my wishing became more in the form of, I can’t wait for her to be more independent. Or I will have more time when she goes to school. Looking back, it feels as though I wished away the best part of her childhood. Those formable years. The years when I had the greatest influence on molding her. I wished them away because I was nothing short of exhausted.
And now I sit here and watch her as an adult. I honestly can’t believe it has been 20 years since we were in that Neonatal unit. I can’t believe we use to be scared to hold her and tried to shelter her from the world and all the bad things in it. We can’t do that any more. Now we sit back and watch as she makes decisions, mistakes and learns how to navigate the world around her. But one thing I am grateful for is that when she was little, I had a camera. A camera that had film in it. And a camera that required you to print the photos in order to see them.
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Thanks to that little camera, I am now able to sit here and look back through old photographs and albums of when she was young. I don’t need electricity to do it. It is tangible. Something I can hold in my hand. And something I can pass on to her, her children and her children’s children. I am so glad I have all the photos of her being goofy, pulling faces or being completely serious. And I love it when kids come into the studio and they get to be themselves. I think it’s easy to forget they are kids. We want to them to be perfect little people, but forget how much fun they can really be. So every time I have families in the studio, I always let them act a little crazy towards the end (or at the start if I need them to loosen up a bit). Because one day they will be all grown up and you will have forgotten how little they once were. And that funny face they used to pull at the least opportune time, will be a long lost memory.
So here’s to kids being kids. May we know them, may we love them. And may we raise them to be incredible adults who never forget to laugh.
