Take your picture

Last weekend my brand new, shiny, in perfect condition fancy iphone met its untimely demise.  We won't linger on the cause of death or the begrudged murder suspect, because what really matters is that it's gone.

For those of you who have morned the loss of a beloved electronic device you'll know that it's not what was on the outside that you miss most, but rather what was within that causes your tears...

Pictures.  Videos.  Memories.  Lots of memories.

Excited by joining the modern world of fancy smart phones we had quickly come to rely on my iphone for all our picture and video taking since it entered our lives as an early Christmas present in November... that gave us plenty of time to capture first school plays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, several birthdays...

Why didn't I put them on my computer you ask?  Well, I was in the middle of researching how it is that my "old" 2010 MacBook is not compatible with iCloud. Sadly this hiccup obviously wasn't resolved in time.

At first it was brought to my attention (by the murder suspect) that I was being irrational and overly emotional about the departure of "just a phone." Even the kids chimed in to fuel my materialism guilt by asking "but aren't you happy to get a brand new phone again?!" No, sorry sweet hearts, even getting a brand new, out of upgrade cycle, ridiculously expensive iPhone doesn't make this all better.

It didn't take long for them to understand why.

The missed memories are the long term sting (the one for adults) but there's also trauma to the wee ones in all this as you see our number one source of keeping the kids entertained in kid-unfriendly public situations was gone... No more pictures and videos to look through to pass the time at dreaded doctor visits.... No more admiring your own adorableness from weeks past...

Fortunately Sienna inherited her crisis management techniques from her father. Where there is a problem, there is a logical solution.

"Let's just take as many pictures as possible as quickly as possible to fill your phone back up!"

And thus began the week with:

"Mom!  Take a picture of me walking to the store in this sweater!"

Then, early wake ups with:

"Good morning mommy! (2" from my face)  Look at our silly faces.  Take a picture of them!"

Until I finally relinquished control and let her take a few shots on her own... 

She started with her favorite model:

Herself, and yes, this is up-close-self portrait take #1 of 657. 

Eventually she started moving on to other models...

 Not too bad huh? 

She even learned to direct our poses... "Mommy, look up at Daddy like you're happy with what he just said" (Does she think I usually fake this??)

A few still shots of our poor poochy pants who can't seem to find a Lego free spot to catch some un-tortured shut eye.

And last a few awkward attempts to take a picture of the baby... ew... is this how it really looks from above...