Graduation

I took these photos because I specifically wanted to document the difference a year would make.  I made sure to have Aidan wear his uniform shirt and I placed all those letters on our cute letterboard.  A process that is actually a lot harder and much more dangerous to your fingers than it should be resulting in the same quotation sitting on our board for months now.

Of course in typical four year old fashion, Aidan was not interested in holding still or posing the way I asked.  But I snapped photos anyway.  Because of all the lessons I’ve learned from photography, the greatest one is this – move with your subject.  It is a lesson that is sometimes hard to remember.  You’re making adjustments to the camera, you’re checking lighting, you’re keeping your subject happy (which sometimes requires bribes of donuts or lollipops or even both) so moving your feet in addition to everything else is a learned skill.

But this lesson is so tangential to motherhood.  I often want to mother from a comfortable sitting position and have children that listen the first time I ask them to do something.  Reality gives me children that whine and climb on the dinner table when they are done throwing food on the floor.  And so I have to remember to move my feet.  Because motherhood is fluid and what worked yesterday, might not work today.

Which brings me to these end of the year photos where once again, Aidan did not care to pose.  And this time, like the well organized mother that I am, I forgot the letterboard at home.  So it isn’t a perfect comparison from the start of the year to the end of the year but it is a perfect summation.

Next year will take us to a new school, with new teachers, and new challenges.  My very bright but sometimes shy little boy will probably resist my request for photos a few more times.  That’s ok.  I’ve learned to move my feet.