It was so cold outside that I decided to spend much of Saturday at home, trying to take back the area of our living room around our bookshelves/wall unit, which had become overrun, not only by a hodgepodge of books, but really with every manner of family tchotchke, from defunct cameras to over-sized plastic sunglasses. As I sorted through it all, there was also a real find: A photo album of the family shot in Central Park when Adam was about 10 months and Elena was 4 years. Our babies are now, respectively, 10 and 14 years, and though a nice round number of 10 years has passed since the shoot in the park, in the parent-brain at least, it’s easy and natural to see the extrapolation of their looks and personalities. My wife and I are so crazy that we’d tell you, in all seriousness, that they still look similar to their baby selves, just older.
Take photo, to the right, of Adam blowing bubbles. In our parent-brains, my wife and I look with dewy fondness at how much he liked to blow his bubbles—at what a source of wonder they were to him—and then quickly we pivot in agreement about how he’s still a kind of squishy chunk of blonde love, only now his preferred expulsions are farts.
My wife and I are now well into that stage of family life where are children often think of us as embarrassments. You’d think that our cooing over the early photos would be prime examples of just how embarrassing we really are. But what transpired after I discovered the album on Saturday—and I’ve seen this before—is that our kids were just as sentimental about the photos as we were. Even Adam, who, metaphorically speaking, will fart on anything, loved seeing another shot of his cute baby self.
“Look, I’m a little baby,” he called out in notes of adorableness.
Coming upon the photos was a brief and sweet reverie.
Soon enough, it was right back to pile books and extras in the living room, and being a parent to a tween and teen.
May the next 10 years be as kind to us.
Eric Messinger is the editor of New York Family. He can be reached at [email protected].
