Trying not to view life through a lens

When I started my blog, the main purpose was to keep a record of the girls as they grow up. I want to capture so many key moments in their lives. I want to look back at them and relive them growing-up, and I want them to be able to see what what their lives were like. However, I need to be able to strike a balance between watching them doing all of this through my camera lens and actually being there in the moment and experiencing all of this with them.

It became really obvious to me on a recent trip to Stratford Park in Stroud that recording memories doesn’t just mean taking photos. On the morning of our visit, we were lucky enough to have some beautiful spring weather. We grabbed some bread to feed to the ducks as we left the house and put on waterproofs and wellies as we were expecting mud.

After feeding the ducks, we walked through the park towards the play area. The girls climbed over rocks and walked along fallen tree trunks. Freyja’s confidence has really grown since she started school, and Emily is only too keen to try and copy her big sister. They held my hand when they felt unsure and jumped into my arms as they descended from their natural climbing frames.

We arrived at the play area and the girls jumped onto the first things that they saw:

However, soon after they had each spotted different equipment that they wanted to play on. Emily went for the roundabout, running and pushing the bar to get it moving before leaping on.

Freyja was feeling more adventurous. She headed over the the climbing frame, and surprised me with wanting very little assistance from me as she crawled across a walkway, before sliding down the fireman’s pole all by herself.

Emily is pretty fearless, and before long she wanted to climb too. For her it was on a net to get up onto the top of the climbing frame and making sure I knew that she was “the King of the castle”.

She then had great fun on the slide. It wasn’t particularly slippy, so she stopped before the end. To make it more enjoyable, after she had come to a standstill, she stood up and jumped off the end, always proceeded by “look at meee!”

I felt a little redundant. I have always been almost hovering over them whenever we go to a playground, being there if they needed me, but in reality I think I have just been scared that they will hurt themselves if I am not. Whilst Emily continued on her seemingly endless loops of climbing up, sliding down and jumping off the climbing frame, interspersed with a few crawling through lower level tunnels and shouting “boo!”, I watched Freyja from afar, climbing on some stepping stones made from old logs. I made myself stand still and watch her. No running after her to check if she were ok, no taking photos. Just being in the moment and properly watching her. She suddenly seemed so grown up. So independent. I didn’t feel a twinge of panic that she might hurt herself as I wasn’t right there, I just enjoyed seeing her play. The moment was then interrupted by a loud “BOO!”

Before long Freyja had come back from her little adventures further afield, but it wasn’t for the security of me being close by. She wanted to play with her little sister. They don’t need to have the images here on a blog to remember the fun they have together, but sometimes it is nice to have the photographic evidence.