You would think this would have made me more careful when it comes to my own children. But I find myself taking less pictures of my son Jarod. My photo albums chronicle the life of Cassadie with so many pictures you can almost see every inch of growth. The pictures of Jarod are not even a quarter of the number of pictures of Cassadie. When Cassadie started swimming, I took pictures and video at every swim meet for the first 6 months. Since Jarod started, I haven't taken more than a handful.
I have a few theories as to why this has happened.
#1 As life gets busier, I get caught up in it and forget to document the memories. I fall out of the habit of keeping my camera with me ready to grab a picture.
#2 The squeaky wheel gets the grease. What I mean to say, is that Cassadie is much more vocal than Jarod, and therefore gets more attention. This is not intentional of course. For example, I had planned to buy Jarod some new shoes for Easter. For those of you who don't know, Jarod is very particular about what he wears. I could not just pick out a pair of shoes, I needed him to pick them out. But I wanted to surprise him as well, so I took him to the shoe store and had him pick them out and try them on. Then I said "I'm sorry Jarod, but I don't think I can buy these. They're a little more than I had planned to pay. Why don't you look around and see if there is something else you like." I knew he wouldn't...he's very particular. When he was done looking (which took all of 30 seconds), I said "well, let's go, I'll think about it, and maybe I can come back and get them tomorrow or Thursday." To all of this, he said nothing. He never begged me to buy them, didn't even ask. He hasn't said one more word about those shoes since we left the shoe store. If this same thing had happened with Cassadie, she would have begged, pleaded, offered her soul in exchange for me buying the shoes. There would have been no end to the questions about when she could get them or when I was going back to Yakima.
By the way, I went back and bought the shoes while he was at Karate class. They are in my closet waiting for Easter as I write this.
#3 Cassadie and Jarod are very different in many ways. One big differenc, Cassadie loves attention although she claims not to. She posed for many of those pictures in the photo albums. Jarod hates attention. He would give you a dirty look instead of smiling when the camera was aimed at him....my sister Beckie has a picture that demonstrates this perfectly. I think I have allowed this major difference to be my excuse. I always think that he doesn't like me to take pictures of him so I should leave him alone.
I suppose it could be worse, all his stuff could have been ruined when the garage flooded. ;)
All of this to say, I regret not doing a better job of documenting Jarod's life. I appreciate that my family does a better job than me, and am determined to do a better job in the future.
This picture was taken on New Years Eve 2010. Cassadie went to a party with the Youth Group at church, and Alex had to work, so Jarod and I watched the ball drop in Time Square together.
