Valentine's Day - my first mommy homework assignment!

I survived my first mom craft project!

This was Liam's first Valentine's Day in preschool and his class did a Valentine's Day card exchange. When I received the email letting us know that we were each to send in cards for all the other kids along with a tissue box for turning into a Valentine's mailbox, it felt like my first mommy homework assignment. Eek!

The key - how to do something cool and creative without going overboard and making it MY craft project. It had to be something that Liam could plausibly execute. What to do?!

When I came up with the idea of a custom stamp, I was pretty excited. Cool, custom, designed yet easy to do. I remembered that my friend Katie had been raving about a custom stamp she had made of her logo, so I contacted her and she directed me to Etsy store Cupcake Tree. Olga, the store owner, was very responsive and shipped me my order pretty much at the speed of light.

Liam doesn't usually talk much about what they get up to at preschool, but he was really excited about his Valentine's mailbox that they worked on all last week, and mentioned it several times. I have to admit that I wasn't sure how he was going to respond to our craft project (he can, after all, be a contrary toddler) but he jumped right into it and made about 10 cards pretty much by himself with only a little direction before he lost interest and I had to make the rest.

And I have to say it was pretty cool when he came home yesterday with his homemade (or schoolmade) mailbox brimming full of cards and excitedly opened and examined all of them.

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day everyone - I hope you had a good one!

nyc baby, child and family photographer & architect alethea cheng fitzpatrick is based in brooklyn. she specializes in baby photography as interior design & interior design for babies. view her portfolio of babies, children or families or send her an e-mail here!

Happy Birthday Liam!

Today was Liam’s third birthday. Three years ago today, Liam was born in the late afternoon via c-section and so began this amazing journey into parenthood and, as it turned out, into becoming a family photographer and teacher with my own business.

My in-laws hosted a small family get together yesterday to celebrate. My husband dressed Liam in a button down shirt, something he practically never wears, and the whole afternoon and evening I marveled at how big and grown-up and, let’s face it, adorable he looked in it. My big boy, my first baby, three years old. This past year he has become so much more confident, independent and verbal. He tells jokes, talks about what he dreamt about the previous night, bosses people around, negotiates with the best of them and has just the most hilarious take on things. Everyone kept calling him the birthday boy yesterday and he kept correcting them – “I’m Liam!”

Happy Birthday Liam!

nyc baby, child and family photographer & architect alethea cheng fitzpatrick is based in brooklyn. she specializes in baby photography as interior design & interior design for babies. view her portfolio of babies, children or families or send her an e-mail here!

Grandma's choice

A funny thing happened a few weeks ago that I thought I'd share.

My mother-in-law commissioned me to design her a wall gallery featuring all her grandchildren. I put together a mock-up and sent it over.

She wrote back to say that she liked all the photos... except the one of my own son!!!

Apparently the photo I sent did not show enough of his personality and smile or how cute he is.

I didn't mind at all. In fact, I thought it was hilarious.

This is the photo I originally showed her.

Personally, I think this photo is so sweet and nostalgic, and is one of the strongest representations I have of "the summer when he was one." This is the photo I'm going to look at fifty years from now and melt over.

But I can understand my mother-in-law's perspective. I went to my smile file (I don't really have a smile file) and narrowed it down to four more options, plopped each of them in a mockup and sent them over.

Response - she liked the third one, but had been hoping to catch his dimple!

Back to the dimple file (I don't really have a dimple file).

Three dimple options were duly sent over but she decided to stick with her previous choice, even without the dimple.

Job done!

Here is the photo she picked.

And you know what? My mother-in-law was looking for the photo that best represented HER experience of "the summer when Liam was one." And this was it.

I'm telling this story because it's a funny story. But I've been trying to figure out, what does this mean?

That grandmas like smiles and dimples?

That's probably true (my mother is a big fan too). But it's not like I don't like smiles and dimples!

I'm 100% happy with the choice my mother-in-law made (I never show anything I don't want someone to pick!) but why did I choose the original photo first?

Here's the thing. The first photo, for me, evokes a very clear and distinct moment in time during a special afternoon with a friend. I remember the moment. The second photo was also taken during a special afternoon with friends, but there were other photos from that day that were more evocative of more powerful moments for me. In other words, the second photo does not represent the strongest memories I have from that day whereas the first one does.

Photos preserve memories. It's why it's important you have a good experience at your photo session, and not just great images. If the images are great but you had a horrible time, your artwork is not going to have the same meaning.

But it's not just about having a good experience. That good experience needs to be made up of distinctive and powerful moments - it has to be memorable.

And distinctive and powerful moments don't just make for good photos. In fact, they only make for good photos because they make for a good life. If you think back on your fondest childhood memories, of course it's the distinctive and powerful ones you remember.

What will your children remember?

nyc baby, child and family photographer & architect alethea cheng fitzpatrick is based in brooklyn. she specializes in baby photography as interior design & interior design for babies. view her portfolio of babies, children or families or send her an e-mail here!