alex now

alex then

i finally got around to making a book of the photographs of alex's first year last night.
the photos had been loaded into blurb 4 different times, all 461 of them, but i never was able to begin the process of making the book.

i worried about the words i would use...how to capture exactly how that first year affected me and our family...i really could not face the enormity of the task. or, rather, how overwhelming i believed it to be.

that first year of alex's was something else.
we survived, healthy and happy, but it was difficult.
i was criticized during his first year for being a bit of a whinge ass.
oh well, lol. i was really tired and really stressed about this child who we could not soothe. ever.
and this came through the photos and their descriptions as the year progressed. i am not good at understating things. we were doing our very best to balance this baby and the needs of our "big" kids...but sometimes it was very, very difficult.

there is one night in particular, in january ( i even remember the exact date because of my stupid rainman abilities ), my first night out with photo friends...dinner, a sharing of blurb books and a coffee. my first taste of normal socializing since the baby had been born almost 6 months before.
i remember appreciting how relaxing the night was.
until my friend looked at his phone and said "kevin says you need to call home".
well, kevin is not my husband. he is my good, good friend who had bailed on us that night (sorry sucker!) but knew where i could be found.
confused, i reached for my cell phone...only to realize that i had left it in the truck.
the calm of the evening had been a ruse.
the baby had been screaming for hours. my poor husband could do nothing to soothe him and he had been looking for me for hours, every phone message a little more dire than the last.

i drove home fast that night, through the snow and cold, to find an exhausted and drained husband and baby. a baby who fairly collapsed into my arms from his sobbing.
that kind of need affects you.

and every single photo i looked at last night brought back vivid memories like that one.
as the year progressed, the intensity of...everything did lessen.
the photos of our trip to london and paris, with the baby, are filled with happy smiles and wonderful memories. for a child so traditionally high maintenance he adapted to the european lifestyle ( and time change ) quite easily;).

i don't think i was ready to revisit that year until now.
by the end of last night  - i could not stop once i started - i was happy. i ended up not using any words in the book, other than a small note to alex at the very end.
there was very little i found i could say...other than i hope that he realizes how much we love him every moment of every day.

365 days projects are not for everyone...for me, they are something so special.
in the craziness of that year, by capturing the moments i was lucky enough to have had the opportunity to capture...i found comfort and joy in the quietest of shots...a happiness that escaped me at the time but that was there all along.



♥the top photo was taken with my blackberry yesterday, for the august break 2010 on flickr.
♥♥the second photo was taken on day 31 of 365 of his first year.  the others randomly sprinkled throughout the post are also from his 365, which you can find here
babya's 365 

and trying something new

threesixtyfive by Angela Auclair Bloomfield | Make Your Own Book