I started this blog for the memories. I started it to capture the moments I wanted to be able to bottle up and keep forever. I wanted to capture those ordinary everyday moments with my family that I knew would one day be the moments that I wanted to revisit most of all.
Every parent can relate to the saying, "the days are long but the years are short". When you're raising little people day to day it can often feel like you've got forever with them, that you can't imagine a time when they won't be small and need you as much anymore.
But us parents also know just how quickly the time does in fact go by and just how much our little ones change year by year. Little ordinary things that they might have said and done last year change and are sometimes forgotten. It's not maybe until we look back at old video clips and photos that we remember those funny little quirky things that they did. And that's why I think it's so important to capture ordinary life with our little people where we can.
When I look back through my blog, my youtube channel and my Instagram account I am reminded instantly of so many little things about the boys from when they were younger that might otherwise have left my mind. Things like the way Logan used to say Bye (gat gat Eeeee). Ethan's first day of nursery and how that nursery helped to bring his speech on and how he started to call himself 'E E' and call pasta 'Pa Pa'. I found a video clip of a funny face Logan used to pull at me quite regularly as a baby that I'd totally forgotten about. He also used to bounce around on his Grandma's knee all of the time and it's lovely to have little clips of that.
There are so many pictures of Ethan twisting his fingers into his own hair or into mine, which always meant that he was tired. It used to hurt my head when he pulled on my hair, but I miss him doing it now, I always loved that that was his comfort. Logan used to sit on his bum as a baby and he'd stretch out his hands and fingers as well as his feet and toes really fast when he was excited and I found video clips of that. I've also got footage from the boys' first steps and the excitement of hitting that huge milestone. I've captured their birthdays and their christmasses. I've captured their different interests over the years and the way they pronounce certain things, some things which are often far too cute to correct.
And I love that I have all of this. I look back at videos and pictures from a few years ago often feeling so emotional, I can't quite believe that our baby days are over. It wasn't always easy, but we had the best time. And as the baby chapter has closed, we've entered into this new chapter of having little children on our hands, full of so much life, energy and excitement. And now we get to watch and help their personalities form and develop into the two different and unique people that our boys will be.
We've entered into a new and exciting chapter and there are so many more amazing yet ordinary things that I hope to capture over the years. They've got many exciting milestones ahead of them and so much to learn and just as there is right now, they'll be so many more ordinary little things about them that I won't want to forget. Things like how five year old Ethan calls the piano the 'plano' or the radiator the 'radiheater'. How when he first learnt to read he would add 'lle' to the end of 'it' to make 'itlle' and 'is' to make 'issle'. I want to remember all of our impromptu kitchen disco's (though I'm sure they'll be many more of those over the years). And the way that Logan has to give me three kisses and three hugs (because he's 3 years old) every night and every time he leaves for school.
One thing that helps me to remember the boys little quirky ways is the fun little interview videos that I make with the boys each year. I love that I get to have these videos to look back so that I can remember the way they spoke, how their little minds worked and what they liked and disliked at the time. I've so far filmed three 'interviews' with Ethan, I started when he was 3 and we've done one each year since. Logan's been 3 for a while and I wanted to make sure we filmed one for him before he turns 4 at the end of June and so last week we sat down and filmed the video you can see below.
I know that these are the sorts of videos we'll watch back and treasure when the boys are much older as I've come to know that it's the little ordinary things that often make up some of the best, more cherished memories and moments that we won't want to forget.
Thank you for reading. Alex xo
