It's not just about Mummy having something just for her - a creative outlet, a hobby, something to keep her brain ticking over and a place for her to make friends and feel part of a wider community despite not leaving the house as much as I did before I became a stay at home/work at home Mum.
It's about capturing a feeling. Or feelings, lots of them.
It's about capturing the magic of what it is to be a parent and all of the many powerful feelings that come with it. The powerful highs, the powerful lows and the ordinary every day in between moments.
And sometimes it's those ordinary everyday moments that are the ones I want to hold on to the most.
Like an image of your tiny black school shoes that lie neatly tucked together on the floor, waiting for September when they'll help you take your first steps into reception and full-time school. There they'll witness your first proper day at school, they'll be on your feet as you tuck into the lunch that Daddy or I would have made for you. And we would have made it with a mind full of thoughts and a heart that feels a bit jittery with excitement and nerves and pride and love and hope and worry and every other sort of emotion.
It's this image of your tiny shoes - so smart and so formal, so grown up but yet still so little that is just one of the many images that I'd like to hold on to. Because one day, those little shoes won't be sitting there anymore waiting for a little boy, my little boy, to have his first day at full-time school. They'll be gone and will have been replaced with bigger shoes and then those too will be replaced with even bigger ones, until one day your little black shoes that sit there waiting for your first day of school, will turn in to much bigger shoes that will probably be even bigger than your Dad's!
But enough about shoes - what I'm trying to tell you is that parenthood is a journey. And whilst every new moment and every new chapter and every single part of the journey is one to be embraced and to be enjoyed, it's a rather bittersweet feeling saying goodbye to the chapter and the moments before. So I write this blog and I make our videos for us to be able to always look back on.
I'm just four years in - but already I've watched you grow from a tiny newborn to a lively little toddler and then from a cheeky little toddler to an amazing little boy who's just about to embark on his own journey of starting full-time school.
I know that you're growing up and I will always respect your wishes and try never to put anything online that could ever make you feel uncomfortable, but I hope that you'll continue to let me capture you as well as enjoy and embrace the moments of raising you. When we sit and watch the videos back that I've made for us - our Christmases, yours and Logan's birthdays and even the moment that you first laid eyes on your brother, I'm often not watching the screen - I'm watching you sitting there watching yourself. And you're smiling and your laughing and I feel like these are my gifts to you - these captured moments and all of these memories, there yours as well as mine.
These moments mean the world to me and I'll treasure them always and I hope you will too. Right now, I can't imagine a time that we don't capture our Christmases or our birthdays or even the ordinary family moments and holidays. I'm so proud of these moments and I'm so proud of you and your brother and of your Daddy and I and our often intense but equally amazing rollercoaster journey of parenthood that I never want to forget.
Thank you for reading. Alex xo
