I've been going through old videos from the early days of our kids' lives and I came across one of Mary Lee and George Sr, mostly the latter, with Natalie shortly after she was born, it must have been autumn 2000, in our house on Wilton St. As an aside, in the video we discussed that the camera itself costed $900 (we let my mom and Mary's parents buy it for us). Compare that to the cost of a phone today and it gives you a sense of the progress of technology just in the intervening years.
In the video George Sr starts talking about how it's the right time of life to get such a camera so we can preserve the memories of the kids when they are little. And I've got plenty of that, especially of Natalie, who is dramatically better documented than Graham is in certain ways just because when your first is born one enters into an entirely new dimension of life, parenthood, and that's what we're capturing as much as anything. Yes the child, but also the sensation of having created new life, the possibility of a different kind of futuricity, the understanding that your life will never be the same.
But what is really rare in the video is not the footage of Natalie, but of George Sr. It's striking and moving to see him there doing his thing, making faces at the baby, being a regular guy. And, also, footage of Mary. Here and there I let the camera linger on her and she senses it and looks at me and is annoyed, seemingly gesturing towards Natalie: "Get the baby!". Mary criticizes me alternately for not taking enough pictures of her and of taking pictures of her when her hair looks crappy, the light is unflattering, from a bad angle, etc. I'm glad I have some. I'm hoping I find more video of her.
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