Candid Camera

2001

Seven healthy children.

I know I’m blessed and I am thankful, but when I think back to when they were all young and I was homeschooling seven children, I remember being tired and overwhelmed all the time.

I see them now, no longer stairsteps, no longer different heights, but different sizes. Different personalities, different passions, different hopes and dreams. I see these sometimes children/ sometimes adult people that I am responsible for loving, and on occasion I long for the days when they were little.

Being busy, tired, and overwhelmed, I didn’t always love them as they ought to have been loved. I didn’t appreciate or enjoy them like I should have. I’ve often longed to go back for one hour to when they were little – just to see them in all their little-person cuteness once again.

I was given that gift last night.

Erica found an old family video I didn't know existed and had Radio Shack convert it to DVD. Last night the family sat down to watch this video. We hadn’t owned a video recorder so occasionally borrowed one. This video wasn’t in a format that could be used in our VCR so it had never been watched.

Ten years ago, unbeknownst to us, Keith had set up a video camera and recorded a family meal when the kids ranged in age from four to seventeen. The video shows them all in their cute, ornery glory. 

They were cute. I looked awful. It wasn’t my imagination that I remember feeling lumpy and frumpy. I thanked Keith for loving me even when I looked tired and haggard.

We laughed so hard last night, I couldn’t catch my breath a few times. The video is so precious to me. A unscripted, unedited glimpse into our family’s life ten years ago, warts and all. 

Little girl laughter, a young boy’s changing voice, sweet smiles, unbrushed hair, clothes slept in and worn the next day, wrestling, lame jokes, cartwheels, messy rooms, cute comments, boy noises.

So happy, vibrant, and full of life. Somebody always talking, someone always moving, constant commotion.

So blessed. So mine.

I'm thankful for this moment in time preserved, so that ten years later I can properly appreciate it. Thanks from the bottom of my heart for this special gift.