Outtakes
I love taking pictures. Despite not being a professional and really having very little clue what I'm doing, some of the shots I take wind up being good ones. At least in my own eyes.
Photography for me is a seriously by-volume venture. For every hundred shots, I might get ten or so that I really like. Which leaves me with lots upon lots of outtakes.
Like these. Oh bless Trey's heart, he was trying. Well, for a few of them.
But sometimes it just doesn't work. At all.
Picture perfect just doesn't happen. My muses are just not happy or distracted or driving each other too crazy to pretend to be all hunky dory for the camera.
Such a shame. Those flowers were so sweet and friendly. Though in hindsight, a bit of a mismatched setting for my boys who, while generally sweet and friendly, would be (and look) more at home, say, atop a bulldozer.
Hey, we live and learn. Next bulldozer we come across, now that will make for some top-notch photos.
Yes, life has its outtakes as well. And lots of them, at least around these parts.
The daily, er, hourly parenting screw-ups. The daily, er, hourly sibling quabbles that end in either injured feelings or bodies. Or when I crawl into bed and vow to just edit the entire day out of my memory.
And to poor Poppop, who has lovingly voiced his disappointment at the infrequency of blog posts, I say this is probably the reason I don't write as much anymore. While I definitely want to keep it real here, sometimes the failures are too fresh to put in black and white. They sting.
So in effort to loosen up and really keep it real, here's a trial and error that resulted in complete error.
The boys and I have made the rather long trip to Layman Farms for the last couple of years, and they enjoyed it so much. Lots of farm-themed activities to participate in. So we were beyond excited to awake last Saturday morning to a cool, crisp fall day, our trip to the farm all planned out. A picture perfect day.
But sometimes it just doesn't work. At all.
Picture perfect didn't happen.
They fought over what activities to do, and in what order to do them in. They didn't want to do what the other wanted to do.
Trey deemed himself too old for some of the activities and would have just preferred to wander around in the corn maze for hours.
Aden got upset that some of the activities were too advanced for him and just cried his little eyes out for half the time we were there. Very unlike my Aden.
And I will admit that I didn't handle the, um, un-cooperation very well and added unneeded tension to the situation. It's insane how much these boys play off my emotions. Insane and utterly humbling.
We did have a few happy moments. Aden on the cow train and chasing the tether-pumpkin. Trey at the corn cannon and ball-throwing station. A few smiles may have slipped out in the corn maze. And...that's about it.
So things don't often go the way we plan them out in our minds. My husband always says, "You have to love the process." Still figuring out exactly what that means to me, but I think it has something to do with the "for better or worse" part of being a mom. And a human, for that matter.
I exhaust myself trying to avoid mistakes in this doomed journey of perfectionism. Though somewhere inside I know the human condition, and that I am in fact human, for whatever reason I still hold myself to some superhuman standard.
Hey self, you're gonna fall. And it's gonna hurt. And Jesus is going to pick you up, dust you off, give you a life lesson, and chip away some of the old you. And someday you might actually be a more patient, perspective-minded, and faith-filled person.
Why is that so hard for me? Ugh. If I could just get that, like really, really get that, maybe this need I have to scrap the outtakes might fade away.
Because as nice as those picture perfect moments are, some outtakes are even more precious. Because they're real.
Photography for me is a seriously by-volume venture. For every hundred shots, I might get ten or so that I really like. Which leaves me with lots upon lots of outtakes.
Like these. Oh bless Trey's heart, he was trying. Well, for a few of them.
But sometimes it just doesn't work. At all.
Picture perfect just doesn't happen. My muses are just not happy or distracted or driving each other too crazy to pretend to be all hunky dory for the camera.
Such a shame. Those flowers were so sweet and friendly. Though in hindsight, a bit of a mismatched setting for my boys who, while generally sweet and friendly, would be (and look) more at home, say, atop a bulldozer.
Hey, we live and learn. Next bulldozer we come across, now that will make for some top-notch photos.
Yes, life has its outtakes as well. And lots of them, at least around these parts.
The daily, er, hourly parenting screw-ups. The daily, er, hourly sibling quabbles that end in either injured feelings or bodies. Or when I crawl into bed and vow to just edit the entire day out of my memory.
And to poor Poppop, who has lovingly voiced his disappointment at the infrequency of blog posts, I say this is probably the reason I don't write as much anymore. While I definitely want to keep it real here, sometimes the failures are too fresh to put in black and white. They sting.
So in effort to loosen up and really keep it real, here's a trial and error that resulted in complete error.
The boys and I have made the rather long trip to Layman Farms for the last couple of years, and they enjoyed it so much. Lots of farm-themed activities to participate in. So we were beyond excited to awake last Saturday morning to a cool, crisp fall day, our trip to the farm all planned out. A picture perfect day.
But sometimes it just doesn't work. At all.
Picture perfect didn't happen.
They fought over what activities to do, and in what order to do them in. They didn't want to do what the other wanted to do.
Trey deemed himself too old for some of the activities and would have just preferred to wander around in the corn maze for hours.
Aden got upset that some of the activities were too advanced for him and just cried his little eyes out for half the time we were there. Very unlike my Aden.
And I will admit that I didn't handle the, um, un-cooperation very well and added unneeded tension to the situation. It's insane how much these boys play off my emotions. Insane and utterly humbling.
We did have a few happy moments. Aden on the cow train and chasing the tether-pumpkin. Trey at the corn cannon and ball-throwing station. A few smiles may have slipped out in the corn maze. And...that's about it.
So things don't often go the way we plan them out in our minds. My husband always says, "You have to love the process." Still figuring out exactly what that means to me, but I think it has something to do with the "for better or worse" part of being a mom. And a human, for that matter.
I exhaust myself trying to avoid mistakes in this doomed journey of perfectionism. Though somewhere inside I know the human condition, and that I am in fact human, for whatever reason I still hold myself to some superhuman standard.
Hey self, you're gonna fall. And it's gonna hurt. And Jesus is going to pick you up, dust you off, give you a life lesson, and chip away some of the old you. And someday you might actually be a more patient, perspective-minded, and faith-filled person.
Why is that so hard for me? Ugh. If I could just get that, like really, really get that, maybe this need I have to scrap the outtakes might fade away.
Because as nice as those picture perfect moments are, some outtakes are even more precious. Because they're real.
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