The disadvantage of coming second and being a child of the digital age.

Joe's class are learning about different religious celebrations.
A few weeks ago they talked about Diwali and made Rangoli Patterns with chalks and pastels which Joe loved.
This week they are talking about Baptism. Reverend Ruth came in to talk to them yesterday and today they were taking a walk to the Church to see for themselves all the things she had described. In the meantime a letter came home asking if we had any photos of the children's Baptisms please would we send them in. Joe also asked if he had been given anything at his and I said yes, he had been given the candle like everybody else.
So last night after they went to bed I started to search. I found his candle and a few other things I thought he would find interesting, his outfit and some of his gifts.
I found the very large box of photos I have (somehow I never quite got around to putting them all into albums even though I know I should) and started to look for photos of his Baptism. Several hours later I realised that there are a surprisingly low number of photos of Joe. In fact, other than a joint school photo where Joe is crying when he was 2, I don't think there were any.

This got me thinking about why.
I know everybody says you make far more fuss of your first baby but I don't think even that can explain the void of photographs.

I have always been entirely open about my feelings surrounding Joe's birth. Although I have always loved him dearly I did struggle at first to bond with him, we were in a bad situation and it was a while before I could feel happy about it. Maybe that was why I didn't have my camera permanently attached to my hand as with Matthew?

Joe wasn't the prettiest of babies either. In fact I remember being told off for saying he looked like all babies do, small and wrinkly and not very attractive! Matthew was born needing 3-6 month clothing so missed the small, wrinkly stage and skipped straight to very cute stage. Or so I thought! Joe had to have tiny baby clothes (how a baby weighing 8lb 7.5oz can need tiny baby clothes is beyond me, but he did) and was very scrunched up. Did his perceived lack of cuteness mean I avoided taking pictures?

I already had one child, and within 3 months I had a full-time job. So life carried on. There was no time to gaze in awe at my little bundle, no time to stand and stare, taking note of every movement, every facial expression. I remember taking Matthew to those photo sittings you get vouchers for at least every 2 months, I have lots of photos to prove it, but not Joe. Did normal life take away the opportunity to document his childhood?

The photos of Matthew all stop, right around the time Joe was born. I have a few of him holding his new baby brother, some of me with Matthew while I was pregnant, but none from more than 6 weeks after Joe's birth. Why would that happen?

And then it hits me. These hundreds of photos I have in front of me of Matthew, they are all accompanied by negatives. They were all printed by photo processing companies, given back to me in neat little wallets to be put away. I can't remember exactly when I got my first digital camera, and my first phone that could take photos, but I would place a bet on it being sometime around Joe's birth.

I look on the computer, and on the memory sticks that I have transferred images to over the years. There are hundreds of photos of Joe. His entire birth is documented in photos. His first year, pictures of him as I fed him, wrapped up warm in his car seat, being held by various friends and family, it's all there. As he grows up there are more, and he overtakes Matthew with how many there are of him. I think Matthew became a little camera shy, he never stayed still for long and, well frankly he just wasn't as cute when he grew up!

You could spend hours looking through all the photographs on the computer, many hundreds more than I have in print form. Being second child may have meant he missed out on being dragged out for professional photographers (I think I remember trying it a few times and he just slept, or screamed, so I stopped bothering) but I don't suppose he would see that as a bad thing! It was not, as I first feared, being second child that lead to a lack of prints in albums. It was the digital age and the ability to take as many photos as you like without it costing anything to view them. I am relieved, but also a little sad that he doesn't have albums to flick through with his history there to see.

One day I will have to sit down and arrange for prints of the best ones and make up an album. Probably the same 'one day' I finally get around to putting all the prints out of that big box into albums too.........