Friends of ours had a baby shower today. A few days ago, the mom-to-be asked if we would bring baby photos for a game they were playing. I didn’t think I had any baby photos, so I emailed my mom and Dave’s mom to see if they could locate and scan a photo to share. We then brought them to the party where they were put on a bulletin board and folks had to guess who was who.
Well, my mom was at my sister’s in Atlanta, helping to herd my sister’s little ones, so she was far away from “the historical documents” and unable to find a true baby photo. But they searched and did find one from when I was 4. Dave’s mom found a great one of him when they were visiting his grandparents who were living in Africa. Maybe I’m projecting, but what strikes me about each of these photos is how much of our adult personality is already apparent.
In mine, I’m intent on the photographer, seeking to engage (playing rock, paper, scissors?), but also overwhelmed and attempting to hide behind my hair.
There’s something magical about Dave’s. To my eye, there is very little resemblance between his adult self and the tot in the photo – he’s no longer blonde, his Roman nose isn’t there yet…and still there’s something very Dave-like in the attitude/the glance. It’s a kind of intent absorption, a “don’t bother me, I’m busy here”, and of course an engineer’s interest in things with moving parts. Sheila recognized the photo instantly as one of him because of his expression.
Note – I realized this morning that this is entirely circular. I’m guessing the reason these photos charmed our moms enough to have them select them from whatever else they had was particularly this thread. From the set of all photographs, our moms picked the ones that most captured us. 9/16/2007
Ha! I would have picked the one of Dave on the beach eating sand!