Monday, March 28, 2011

I feel sick.

I was trying to take advantage of Mpix's 15% off prints deal going on right now, and ordering a few prints from Jack's first year of life for a scrapbook I had planned to do in lieu of a baby book (that clearly has not been done yet).  I was flipping through December 2009 and loading all of the pictures of his birth and NYE and of course his very first Christmas.

Jack's first Christmas was incredibly unceremonious.  I was still reeling from his early arrival, and while a bunch of planning had gone into that day for Carter (it was, in our minds, the first Christmas little C might really get excited about), pretty much no planning had been made for Jack...his stocking was there (thank goodness for my impatience to order it!), but it was empty...no presents under the tree for him, and in fact we didn't even have a tree!  It wasn't Carter's first Christmas, and since we didn't think it would be Jack's and didn't really want to be taking down a tree and coping with a newborn, we opted to skip the tree.

On Christmas morning we took tons of pictures of Carter receiving the present 'Santa' had brought and going through his stocking, but only one picture was taken of Jack...a joking picture where we stuck a cheap bow on his head teasing that here was another present for Carter.  It wasn't a great picture, but in hind sight it was pretty poignant.  I mean the most amazing gift our family received that Christmas was most certainly our precious baby boy, whose life was spared in that horrible car accident. 

As terrible as all that was, it isn't even what has me upset. This next part is the kick in the gut and what that has me crying as I type.  At some point I deleted that picture.  That one and only picture of Jack on his very first Christmas.  Either in the transfer process or in the process of clearing out some space on the camera to make room for other pics, I deleted that picture.  I have no idea what I was thinking. I probably thought we had taken other pictures of him that day, or maybe in my haze just didn't realize that it was his first Christmas morning when that picture was taken.  Who knows, but feel sick.

I am so sorry my precious baby boy...I'm sure as easy going as you are, you will just laugh and tell me it's no big deal when I apologize time and time again, just like your daddy would, but I want you to know how much I love and that you truly were the best gift we could have ever received that Christmas.

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

Try not to feel too bad. It happens. We've all done soemthing similar at some point during our mommy careers. I totally forgot to take photos ob Ben on his first AND second Thanksgiing. I do have pictures of Hannah on those Thanksgivings though (which I think makes it worse). I also only have one picture of Hannah's first day of school, despite taking about 40 - Ben found the camera and deleted them.

Any chance some family members have pictures of Jack's first Christmas? Maybe they could send you a copy.