A few nights ago we watched Christmas Vacation and there is this one scene where Chevy Chase is in the attic watching old home movies on a projector. It reminded us that we have our old videos from when the boys were little. I don't even know where our video camera is now but we do still have the tapes.
The first one I pulled out was October 1997 - September 2002 which covered 6thGrader's toddler and preschool years as well as kindergarten and the beginning of 1st grade. 4thGrader was an infant, and then toddler and preschooler during the course of the next 6 hours.
It has been so much fun looking back at the children and seeing how much they have (or haven't) changed over the years; watching their personalities emerging into who they are today.
Of course we have the yearly Christmas morning scenes; in fact, that has been the overwhelming majority of screen time. The kids have enjoyed seeing what they got for Christmas each year and what of those things they still have. They have even pulled some of those items out to play with again "for old time's sake."
But we also have a lot of every-day footage and I'm really glad we have that because it shows me that maybe I wasn't as uptight a mother as I thought I was. I let them climb on stuff and launch cookies across the dining room with their pop-up toys. I let them run and jump and play like boys (and girls) need to without hovering all the time. I have at least one lengthy segment for each of the boys when they were crying unconsolably so they now have an idea of what we had to put up with at times (hee hee).
And we have the reading and the singing and the adventures with grandparents. And what a wonderful surprise to me to see my grandfather in one holiday's footage - how awesome it was to see him and hear his voice again as he sat at the dining table with 4thGrader as a toddler in his lap.
I think that as the boys have aged and we've neglected the video camera that now is the time to get it out again, but instead of us using it as parents to let the boys use it to see the world through their eyes for a change.
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I used to call this blog "Adventures of a 3rd Grade Parent" but I stopped blogging halfway through his 3rd grade year. And then I called it "Adventures of a Grade School Parent" only now our older child is off to middle school. So here we go again with a new title.
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6 comments:
What a wonderful thing to show the boys! I bet they loved it! We sadly have been very, very bad at recording anything. We have lots of pictures, but nothing else.
I'm glad you've been vindicated as a "cool" mom who allows your kids to do stuff :)
Heidi
How fun! We did that... and we too have lost track of the camera. Kevin used it to make Star Wars 7 one summer though!
That movie with Chevy Chase, National Lampoons style, is my favorite. And you're right that was wonderful to show the boys!!
How fun. We didn't have a video camera for the first few years of parenthood, so we would borrow them from other people for "big occasions" (Christmas, 1st birthday, etc.). When we got our own, at first we thought "how nice to be able to capture everyday things instead of just big occasions." But of course we don't use it regularly now... although our digital still camera does reasonable video capture, so we have lots of short clips of every day stuff! Now if we'd just go back and watch some of it...
I do agree that it's fun to let the kids take charge of the camera. We did that on our trips this past summer, plus C-boy has been using the video camera for lots of silly little projects (Adventures of Lego Man, stuff like that).
and p.s., what I meant to include was "maybe we should drag out some of our old videos on this long holiday weekend" ... You've inspired me! :^)
My son is only 9 but I love the videos that I have of him as a baby. We too don't use our video camera as often as we should, but we do break it out for the special events (school programs and such too since all the Grandma's live out of town and usually can't attend)
Christmas Vacation is only of my favorite holiday movies... that and A Christmas Story (You'll shoot your eye out!!!).
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