It is a Saturday morning in the summertime. We load shovels and buckets, beach towels and sunscreen, chairs and an umbrella in the back of our car. We eat breakfast while we drive in the early morning light down Folly Road. Happy summer music plays on the stereo. We park at 9th Street, cross the one-way street to the walkover and take a deep breath. Only a handful of people arrive before us. We select our spot and kick off our shoes. August and I immediately walk to the water where we fill a bucket and a blue dump truck in the waves. Daddy and Boston get to work with the shovels. We are soon covered in salt and sand and laughing.
Generally, Brandon creates our family movies and I make our year albums. He videos and edits; I journal and snap. We overlap but the final processing of files into tangible projects is fairly exclusive. I wouldn't know where to start making a video ("How do I add a video to iMovie?"). Brandon would be a bit lost pulling together our year books ("What was that cute thing August said on the mountain trip seven months ago?").
A few months back, I heard about a phone app called 1 Second Everyday. The premise is you combine several one second videos into a longer movie. As a video novice, I was skeptical at first. How could one second of anything be significant? Brandon reassured me that he often includes very short snippets in his longer films and encouraged me to try it. So I downloaded the app and started taking videos of our life. The boys digging in the dirt, August jumping on the bed, a slow pour of coffee, flowers dancing in the breeze. I have just completed my sixth month of these films and I am hooked.
The app makes the editing incredibly straightforward. Here are a few tips I've learned along the way:
1. Shoot videos horizontally. This is just a general videography tip. Converting raw films to family movies flow much nicer when shot in a horizontal perspective. This is a good habit to get into now to achieve a consistent aesthetic as you grow your home video collection.
2. Limit movement. A single second is a very short clip of time. You want one object or the action of the clip to be readily apparent. One way to achieve this is limiting movement. Either keep the camera still and let the object move or keep the object still and move the camera. This is not always necessary of course but fun to experiment with when you have time.
3. Include the unusual. As the primary caregiver to my two sons, my films are typically filled with dirt, trucks and books. To balance the overload of boys-at-play, I like to include scenes of "other." These can be shots of rain falling, moss blowing in the trees, feet walking, waves pouring in on the shore. Think of the small things in your day that are lovely: shadows on your floorboards, sauce bubbling on the stove, spokes of a bike spinning, a deck of playing cards shuffling.
4. Import videos. Although I film a lot, I don't take pictures and videos daily. We are naturally going to occupy our time with more diverse activities on the weekends. On any given Saturday, we might collect video from a few hours at the beach, ice cream cone licks and sunset walks to our local park. If you miss a few days here and there, use these extra videos to fill up your week. This decreases the pressure of having to film on days we are too busy and distracted by life. This project is supposed to be fun so I recommend you use the "import video" option to give yourself breathing space.
5. Pay attention to sound. The app doesn't let you mute sound so be sure to pay attention to the sound as you select your clips and snippet them together.
6. Remember your goal. You are creating a snapshot of your daily rhythms. The films don't have to be high quality to be perfect. Be creative and silly and laugh at yourself.
After our dinner, Boston is too dirty to bother wiping off. I strip his clothes and plop him in the clean kitchen sink. He plays with the sprayer and giggles in delight. I give him a plastic bowl and wooden spoon for play. August, of course, wants to join him. I empty the basin next to Boston and lift August into place. After twenty minutes of laughing and splashing and general mess, the boys are clean and ready for pajamas.
Later that evening as I wash the dinner dishes, I wonder if sinks are made to support the weight of my children.
This is part four and my favorite section. Isn't Brandon a genius at pulling your heart strings? This final section sums up the last two months of Boston's first year. The final song in the film, Don't You Want to Thank Someone, is the song that played as Boston was born. As always, thanks for watching and participating in the joy we receive from these two boys.
This is the third part of Boston's First Year: November 2015 to February 2016. Our Boston Bear is 6 - 9 months old. He starts crawling and the boys play together. August looses a bit of his baby voice and composes longer sentences. His growing vocabulary is a delight.
Thanks for watching. For other films in this series, click here.
Here is Part 2 of our Boston film, spanning July to October 2015. Boston is 2 to 5 months old here; August is 2.5 and in the thick of potty training. (Insert hair-pulling emoji here.) The summer was long and hot and sticky; we splashed in a lot of water and took a lot of early morning walks to the park. I also bought a lot of bags of pebble ice from our local Sonic. Anyhow, enjoy this little collection from our days with our sons.
Meet the Bear documents Boston Wilder's first year with us. The end product is over an hour so I will be posting it in four parts here this week. Every time Brandon makes a film, I am overwhelmed with appreciation for his talent and this beautiful life we have together.
August gathers the toys: wooden digger, plastic shovel, several sticks. He removes his clothing down to his underwear "so they don't get dirty." Barefoot, he sits in the dirt driveway with his toys around him. He scoops and digs and scrapes.
After a minute or two, he asks us to join him. I carry Boston in his green onesie and place him on the ground beside August.
"The wind is blowing, August. Watch that the dirt doesn't get in BB's eyes."
I stand back and watch them play together. Boston eats the shovel. August scoops dirt and watches it blow away in the breeze. Their eyes meet and they both giggle.
We will have baths before dinner tonight.
***
Photo taken by Janie of Life Writing Photography. This is one of the many gorgeous shots she took in our family mini-session this Spring. I plan to post several more in a few days after the birthday hustle has died down. If you are local, I highly recommend her services.
Their relationship is best defined as "follow the leader." Boston crawls so August crawls. August laughs so Boston laughs. Boston throws his food on the floor so August throws his too. August plays with trucks and Boston is not far behind. They join forces in testing boundaries and teaming up against Mumma now. May they one day use this mutual attraction to challenge and encourage each other to walk the Lord's path.
Brotherhood. A privilege to behold the unfolding and development of their precious relationship. One clearly ready for the other to grow up for games of chase, truck smashing, bubble popping. The other adoring and admiring and stretching himself to join. One encouraging, one following close behind. They lose themselves in fits of giggles, dance to the same songs, play with the same beloved toys. It won't be long before they are plotting and planning adventure together. May they always be friends. May they always look out for each other.
We live in Grammie's backyard. Her brick house has a long wooden ramp off the back porch for easy access for the elder members of our family. But no one delights more in this ramp than August. Every sunshine moment, he asks to race trucks on Grammie's ramp.
In the afternoon, after the boys wake from their naps, we drive the trucks over to Grammie's ramp. August runs up and down the ramp, pushing his yellow metal Tonka truck. I kick his blue plastic truck up the ramp to him. The wheels are smaller than the Tonka wheels so it gets stuck often. Boston squeals in my arms. To the joy of both boys, I sit Boston in the back of the blue truck and push him up the ramp, down the ramp and through the grassy yard. They giggle in delight.
The 52 Project was a challenge to take a portrait of my boys once a week every week in 2015. Whew! What an undertaking! I recently finalized the project and I am here to tell you that it ended up being just as big of an undertaking as I thought it would. At no point did I think to myself "my, this is a simple memory keeping process." I learned a few things in the process:
Set up a weekly processing time. I should have established a method for weekly picture selection and editing. I thought a blog post would be incentive enough to keep me on track but as soon as I fell behind, I had little motivation to catch up. I would have had more success had I scheduled a set time each week.
Take pictures with portraits in mind. I intended to use this as an exercise developing my portrait photography. In reality, I scanned the images I shot throughout the week and picked my favorite. As a result, I do not think my portraiture or photographic eye developed much as a result of this project.
Learn your photography style. I am not sure if that is even a legitimate term but what I mean is that I prefer images that capture bits of the subject's character. Some weeks I selected pictures that were just good, clear photographs. But my favorite images from the year- the ones I want to blow up and hang in frames throughout our home- are the ones where August and Boston's character is oozing through. -- August, bent in concentration stirring a puddle with a yellow leaf. Boston, determined to sleep through company with his jaw set tight and his head cocked up. -- This realization about my photographic style might have made the whole effort worth it.
In hindsight, I realize that I should not have tried to take on this project the year we added a baby to the family. That was HARD. In addition to our regular family memory keeping practices, Brandon and I already have a rigorous "first year of baby" documenting process. I've shared a bit about my process here. Brandon makes seasonal short films of the boys in order to compile one long movie highlighting the first year of life. Adding a weekly portrait goal was a bit overwhelming. I am not sure what I am going to do with the pictures. Our family albums are already brimful of pictures and memories. Perhaps I will use these pictures as a sort of highlights reel photobook of its own.
I may try this again in a few years but I do not think this is going to be a central element to our memory keeping framework. That is what I love about memory keeping though- you can easily try new elements and drop old ones that do not work. In 2014, I took a monthly photo of our family of three. In 2015, I took weekly individual portraits of our sons. In 2016, I am going to take monthly portraits of our boys. My aim in the photos is to capture their relationship dynamic.
What are your memory keeping goals for 2016? Are you trying a new practice? I would love to hear.
Before I had August, I was brainstorming ideas for keeping track of our day-to-day memories. I knew I would be terrible at recording milestones into baby books so I wanted another option. I was at a loss and when we were given a gorgeous baby book, I tried to use it. Sure enough, I filled in the first month of information and forgot to detail the rest.
Part of the problem is that I don't care what date August's third bicuspid came in or the date of his first bath. Alternatively, I will want to remember how we spend our days together. This is not a new idea here at Sea and Islands. If you've been here a while, you know I love my Capture the Day and "I hope to remember" type posts.
The Plan
When August was two or three months old, I read a post by the memory-keeping mastermind Ronnie Mason of Life: Captured Inc detailing how she keeps a daily journal for her son's first year of life. I thought this was brilliant but knew I would miss lots of days. I adjusted her method to one that works for me. Here is what I've been doing for over two years:
Using the Simplenote app on my phone, I try to write out a few highlights from our day. If I miss a day, I do not stress. I normally take notes while nursing or right before I go to bed.
Every few months, I write out my notes in the boy's journals. Boston and August both have their own black Moleskin journals. I include thoughtful birthday cards, pictures, ticket stubs and other memorabilia from our time together. Every now and then Brandon writes a note to one of the boys as well. My mom takes scheduling notes when she babysits so I include these in their books as well. I have an aunt who sends pictures she has taken of the children; since I no longer keep traditional photo albums, their journals are a great place to paste these captures.
After I transcribe my notes from Simplenote, I delete the notes in the app and carry on.
The Result
My original intent was to do this for their first year of life. As August's journal was not full at one year, I kept writing- not daily, but regularly enough. Recently, he has been saying some precious things and I am so pleased to have somewhere to record them.
I use these journals when I make our yearly family albums. I pull memories, quotes and dates to incorporate into the broader story of our family life. My plan is to give the boys their journals one day- perhaps when they have children of their own. Until then, they will be my treasure.
Y'all, life is hard and mommy guilt is real. These posts are just meant to share how I choose to focus my attention and perspective on the beauty and joy that my life offers. The beauty of memory-keeping is we each get to decide when, how and what is recorded. I think it is vital to figure out a system that works for you and your family. If I had tried to strictly implement someone else's method, I would have stressed out and (likely) quit altogether. This is my system; this is how I remember the grace upon grace that is my life.
How do you remember? Do you journal or write Facebook posts? Do you take pictures for Instagram or photo albums? Do you text memories to your mom or sister? I'd love to know your method.
What will you do with your pictures and words? It would be a shame to spend a day taking notes and photos without recording these in some tangible way. Having your end goal in mind is helpful when deciding your timing, camera and notebook. Perhaps this post should have been first in this series. My end goal almost always determines which camera and which day I choose for a session. Some recording options include:
- Social Media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc)
- Blog Post
- Photo Album (photobook or scrapbook)
My first session was posted on Instagram live. I have since done a few on Instagram and on this blog. I enjoy the live feedback from Instagram but prefer the quality of photos taken with my DSLR. Each has a very different tone: The iPhone/ Instagram posts are picture heavy with very few words; I tend to focus on a theme like "hands." The DSLR/ blog posts are higher quality pictures curated from a large group of photos with words detailing our activities in a fuller, more journalistic narrative.
Whatever your end product is, be sure that you edit your work.
Curate your photos to the ones that best tell the story of your day.
I chose to use a photo highlighting one of August's toys rather than an adorable, smiley picture of August in an oversized chair. The abandoned toy on the floor tells a better story than the posed picture of my son. I had a nice posed photo of Brandon and August when Brandon came home from work. I opted for the picture of the dump truck ride instead. I love the posed pictures and they will be in our photo albums but not as a part of our Capture the Day session.
Refine your words to tell a compelling story.
I made Brandon read my recent session post to be sure it was interesting. I want to write our story in a way that honors the details of a life lived well. These mundane, ordinary days are very important to our development as a family. Our story deserves to be told in an engaging manner. When you edit your notes, write your story in a way that highlights its importance to you and your family.
Thanks for following along with this series. Please let me know if you have ideas to share or any questions.
To view all of the posts in this series, click here.
Choosing a medium for note-taking is important. You will want to keep them all in one place so they are easy to locate when you are ready to compile and curate your documented day. You can jot notes throughout the day in a designated notebook or in a notes app on your phone. Even non-smart phones normally have a notes app of some sort. (I use the Simple Note app for iPhone.)
Journaling tips:
Take quick notes throughout the day when you take a picture, change an activity or every hour, on the hour. In the moment, just write enough to remember the details. You will edit and elaborate these notes at a later time. I recommend editing your notes within a week of doing a Capture the Day session. You don't want too much time to pass if your note-taking was in shorthand.
1:30 pm: lunch of last night's leftovers. greek chicken on pita wtih cucumbers tomatoes and peppers. iced coffee and chatter with Mum.
2 pm: Play on living room floor. Mum brought pics so we look and talk about New York. August cranky while playing in space mobile.
Edited
1:30 pm: Mum joins us for lunch of last night's leftovers: Greek chicken on pita with cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers.
2 pm: We dessert on iced coffee and visit for a bit while August plays with blocks and his spaceship. Mum brought pictures of August on the MG so we look and talk about her upcoming trip to New York for Rutledge's wedding. He gets cranky for a nap.
The edited version is not longer but it is easier to read complete sentences with proper punctuation.
To view all of the posts in this series, click here.
Decide which camera you want to use. Any camera will work, of course, but keep your end goal in mind. If you want to share your pictures on your favorite social media platform, use your phone camera so you can quickly edit and upload during the day. If you want high quality images to turn into a photo book or print for a scrapbook, pick up your digital camera (point-and-shoot or DSLR). If you enjoy shooting with your film camera but don't pick it up often enough, this is your chance. These sessions are as much about stretching ourselves as they are about memory keeping.
You can use different cameras throughout the day, but I find it is best to stick with one designated camera. Each camera produces a different type of photo, and I want my session to have a cohesive feel.
Take Pictures
It is easy to get in a picture-taking rut. Here are a few ideas for different, creative pictures:
- Please get in the pictures with your family. I am so passionate about this- our kids need to see the way we smile, the way our eyes light up in their presence. They need our joy to be captured and reflected upon in the future. Embrace the camera! (For more information and tips, read this.)
- Take pictures of your children (duh)
- Take pictures of things, especially rituals. Do you make coffee every morning? Snap a picture. Do you restack the board books every night before bedtime? Grab your camera. Is your counter lined with drying baby bottles? Document it.
- Play with angles. Stoop low to your child's eye level. Stand on top of a chair to get the bird's eye view. Tilt your camera on an angle so your subject is diagonal.
- Hold up an ordinary, everyday object against your wall (coffee cup, toy, car keys, pruning shears, favorite book)
I am always looking for a new way to view the ordinary. Please share your favorite camera perspectives with us in the comments section.
To view all of the posts in this series, click here.
The first Capture the Day session I undertook was my first Mother's Day (2013). The second session was Thanksgiving 2013. The third and subsequent sessions have been on random, ordinary days. Whether you choose a special day or an ordinary one is irrelevant. I recommend choosing a day when your activities will be conducive to cameras and small moments for journalling. Perhaps a day at a water park or on the beach or snow skiing is not the best day to lug a camera around with you. I also like to pick a day that doesn't involve a lot of errands since I'd likely forget to take pictures while grocery shopping. Don't let that stop you though! I bet kids loaded in a grocery cart amongst cereal and vegetables would be an amazing memory to capture.
Decide your Time Increments
You will want to divide your day in different increments. I prefer hourly or morning, afternoon, evening. If you choose hourly, you could note the specific time (ie- 4:09 am) or just the hour range (ie- 4-5 am). Morning, afternoon, evening is a great way to document the overall tone of your day. I think this method works really well if you do an activity (ie- homeschool, soccer games) for several hours in a row. The practicality of the day's events help determine which increments of time you should choose.
There is not often a rhyme or reason to when I choose to do a Capture the Day session. I take things one hour at a time because the clock is a great reminder for me to check in. Every hour I try to take notes. Each time our activity changes, I snap some pictures. At the end of the day, I have a full camera card and small details journaled and ready to be edited.
To view all of the posts in this series, click here.
Recently, I shared one of our Capture the Day sessions and it occurred to me that a short series on the subject might be nice. I have said this before: we are the memory keepers for our families. When I was younger, my mother recorded a cassette tape of my brothers' conversations. Sadly, the tape has since been lost, but the idea inspires me. Wouldn't you like to know what you did during a normal day from your childhood? Let's do this for ourselves and for our children.
It occurs to me that all of my memory keeping (photography and journaling) is 100% from my perspective. When August looks back on his life, he will see his father's perspective in short films and my perspective in our family albums. When August is older, I hope to have him journal a "day in the life" feature. I hope I remember that idea years from now. If any of you try this with your older children, please share a link to your results in the comments.
Because we are more likely to remember (and photograph) special days, normal ones need documenting too. If you are interested in doing your own #capturetheday session, I highly recommend it. The key is to just start: start snapping and start writing. I've done this on special days and on ordinary days. Pick a day and start. Hopefully, you will find great beauty within the mundane routine of your day.
Starting tomorrow, I will be breaking down each step over the next month. Here is what you can look forward to-
A personal goal of mine is to do quarterly #capturetheday sessions each year. On July 17th, a Thursday, I picked up my camera and pen to document and detail our day together. Here is our ordinary and extraordinary day in the Summer of 2014:
5:50 am
August wakes crying loudly; I go in and he settles back to sleep immediately. I hold and rock him for 30 minutes longer since he so rarely sleeps on me. Brandon gets up to take over for a bit, but by 7am, we are all awake.
7 am
August plays in our bed between us. We give him the remote for the overhead street lights and he sort of snuggles with us. After he throws the remote behind the bed, we show him pictures and videos on our phone camera roll. Once he is too antsy for snuggles, we put him on the floor and let him roam the upstairs. He takes the giant Chick-fil-A cup from my nightstand and drinks all my water. What he doesn't drink, he dumps out when he uses the cup as a sword by grabbing the straw.
8 am
We are out of prepped oatmeal so August snacks raisins, Cheerios and milk as I prepare more of our tried-and-true oatmeal recipe.
Boil water. Peel and cut the fruit (apple, banana, peach). Boil the fruit. Add cinnamon and old-fashioned oats: whole and milled. Boil until soft. Cool and serve.
Brandon comes downstairs to make his lunch and coffee for work. He will be gone by 8:30 so we try to enjoy our time with him. After he leaves we eat breakfast, August and I. Cereal and coffee for me; oatmeal with blueberries for August. It's been blueberries or strawberries all summer long.
9 am
I light a candle and play worship music for calm serenity. We play with blocks on the living room floor. August normally hands them to me, I build a tower and he knocks it down. He spreads out while playing and makes a much larger mess than he did a month ago. I consider walking down to the park but it's already 90 and very humid.
When August needs a new diaper we go upstairs to get ready for the day. I grab my phone and coffee and camera since I'm taking pictures today. I walk slowly behind August as he crawls up, up, up. We read books and play with Tonka trucks. August sets his jaw and tucks a stuffed animal tightly under his chin.
10 am
We share pre-nap snuggles in the chair to calm August's system. Set the room to "nap mode": Curtains closed. Both sound machines on- yes, two. Fan on high. Sneezy the Panda, Owlie the Owl, water cup and book in the crib. I continue to rock in the chair for a few minutes since he's extra cuddly. Reluctantly, I put August in his crib and go downstairs to work on Spice research. My desk requires a candle, coffee, water and two computers to aid the speed of research.
11 am
August fussed after sleeping for half an hour but then settled again. I take a short coffee break to stretch when my dad calls to cancel tomorrow's lunch. Back to more Spice work until August wakes at ten til noon.
12 pm
We walk to visit with Mum who is working at Rutledge's house around the corner. August walks the entire way and even turns up the right path to his uncle's front door. I help Mum shift some boxes on the third floor and laugh at old, childhood memories. August meets my bear, Bubblegum Pink (nn Pinky) and the peg cobbler toy. We stay until our stomachs begin to growl.
1:30 pm
Mum joins us for lunch of last night's leftovers: Greek chicken on pita with cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers.
2 pm
We dessert on iced coffee and visit for a bit while August plays with blocks and his spaceship. Mum brought pictures of August on the MG so we look and talk about her upcoming trip to New York for Rutledge's wedding. He gets cranky for a nap.
3 pm
Nap time for August and Mumma. To unwind, I grab the iPad to read blogs and the news but learn of the Malaysian flight crash. 298 people. Gone. Torn apart in a Ukrainian field. For a long time, I sit and stare and pray. I eventually read Swistle to calm my nerves and doze off for 15 minutes.
4:15 pm
August wakes after 30 minutes asleep. He's snuggly and wanting to be close. I give him two crackers and milk and pull the bread dough from the bowl. I've let it sit for 24 hours- I hope it still turns out nicely.
Oven on, pot in oven. Counter floured and doughed.
Waiting on the oven and snuggling on the couch with my favorite little man. He's been into the really soft things lately so he loves being on the couch and pretending to sleep. Why do kids find that hilarious?
5 pm
Bread in the oven and dishes cleaned up from the day. August plays with his Tonka truck and our World Cup balloons. He watches on tiptoes as the neighbors splash in their kiddie pool next door. Brandon is home by 5:30; they play together while I bring in the diapers, boil pasta and set the table.
6 pm
Dinner. August gets stripped to his diaper since we're having spaghetti for dinner. We all devour the homemade bread and fresh butter from Happy Cow Creamery. I sip a glass of wine because pasta calls for it. We discuss future travel plans, Brandon's work and August's big adventurous walk to Uncle Rutledge's today. We wipe August's hands, peel the spaghetti off his belly and the boys go upstairs for bath time. August crawls up slowly but happily. I clean the dishes, wipe the counters and sweep the floors.
7 pm
After filling August's water cup, I grab a banana and head upstairs for stories. I meant to deliver the banana during bath time. We read stories and play a bit longer than usual. August is so joyful and thrives when both Brandon and I are around. Hugs and bed for August who continues to play in his crib for some time.
8 pm
After August is in bed, I try not to look at the clock until I am headed to bed. The rest of my day is so timed and monitored, it's lovely having chunks of time at the end of the day to lose track of. 8 pm until bed is an unmonitored mixup of exercise videos, blog posting, shower, laundry and reading. I'm in bed with my book by 11:30 pm. View our other Capture the Day sessions here.
