Where is the camera when you need it?

So, my beautiful baby boy decided that he would roll over. It was a momentous moment. Well, really it was his frustrated reaction to being left on his tummy while I was baking cookies. Needless to say he was pretty upset by the time he got over, and the video camera was no where to be found. The next day I put him back on his tummy, because I am mean, and he got mad and turned over again. Still, no video camera. Seriously, I put him there on his tummy to make him roll over, yet I was not holding the video camera??? What was I thinking. The sweet boy has not done it since. He just refuses to roll over. And now he doesn't even get that upset when I put him on his tummy. He just spits up a little, pushes up on his arms and checks out the blanket he's on. Crawling can't be too far off, right? Better get the camera ready.

A Digital Age

How many digital photos do you have? I can't even count them all. I was looking through them today and couldn't believe how many I haven't even seen before. It has been 4 years since we bought our first digital camera, but somehow I have still not made the transition in my mind from prinited photos in a scrapbook to whatever it is I am going to do with the thousands of digital photos we have taken and continue to take. This wouldn't bother me so much except they are almost exclusively photos of our children. As an adult I feel connected to my past by looking at the photos and photo albums from my childhood. And even more important, I get a glimpse into the childhoods of my parents and grandparents by looking at their old photos. How will our children and grandchildren connect to their past?

Slowly but surely I am trying to wrap my head around the digital legacy we will leave. It frightens me that if something happens to my hard drive, many of the photos will be gone forever. And with digital photography, there are literally thousands of photos taken, instead of hundreds. I want to find a way to customize the viewing method, choose the best pictures and make it entertaining to look at them. Most importantly, I don't want to print them. I don't. It takes too much time. It costs a lot. And it feels wrong to take the medium of the present and convert it to the medium of the past.

So, I came up with this idea of the Video Scrapbook. It seems like a great idea, cause when I looked it up, other people had thought of it, too. I started making them for myself and my family. Then other people saw them, and they wanted one, too. The best part about them is that my kids love to watch the Video Scrapbooks of themselves when they were babies. Already, they are able to connect to their past. And isn't that what taking pictures is all about?

It is a small wonder

When I started my business, I spent the first days trying to settle on a name. What I do is related to children, so I wrote down every word I could think of that could refer to babies and children. My business relies on a website, so I then began searching for each of my favourite names online. After much deliberation, I settled on Small Wonder. It wasn't my first choice and I wasn't in love with it, but it worked. I have since found so much meaning in the name that now it helps define who I am.

So, what is a Small Wonder?

Each of my three beautiful children are a small wonder unto themselves. I see it every day when I look into their curious eyes, and I hear it when they tell me what they are learning in school, or in the case of the youngest, when he makes cooing sounds that mealt my heart. And their very existance in my life is a small wonder. They defied the odds, they survived the risks, they triumphed over my deepest fears! Well, they defied the odds, anyway.

And they inspired me, as part of an ongoing quest to be a better person, to start a business. Small Wonder not only in name but in definition. It is definately small, despite my continuing efforts. Yet, it is wonderful, because each time I compile the beautiful memories of another client and their family, I feel connected to them. I see how similar we all are, and how precious each moment of life is. And when I see or hear their reaction to the finished product, I know I have done something good. I am not saving human life, or effecting world peace. Mine is a small wonder, one that allows me to feel happy and fulfilled at the end of the day.

So, although the phrase "small wonder" can have a negative connotation, "Small wonder he doesn't get frost-bite, playing in the snow with no mittens." it can also have a very positive feeling. "Remember when our son was 2 months old and he learned how to smile? Small wonder."