the moment i opened jenice’s present for raven, i immediately knew it was photoshoot material. i mean, geez, if they had it my size, i would’ve wanted to go twinning with my baby and look like the awkward adult version of her cutesy 10-month-old self.

there really was no occasion for the gift. she said she saw the tutu onesie and it was love at first sight. said if she had a daughter, she’d definitely buy it for her. but she doesn’t have one yet so she kind of made raven her future daughter’s proxy. i told her i’d keep it and give it back to her when the time comes.

it took a while before we finally did the shoot. i mean, i’m surprised it actually happened, considering jeff’s schedule and the fact that i had to find the perfect headpiece that would go with the whole outfit (which i found that time we went to berwick sunday market). not to mention the issues of whether to do it indoors or outdoors and which camera, lens, lights and flash to bring, blah, blah, blah… stuff photographers OC about when all i want are decent-looking pictures. simples!

but the thing i learned from jeff as far as “simple, decent-looking pictures” are concerned is that they still take a lot of work. it’s one step up from a point-and-shoot quality but one breath away from a full-on shoot and there are still a lot of factors involved that i seriously can’t be bothered with which is why i thank my lucky stars the heavens sent me a photographer for a husband. the universe, indeed, knows exactly what you need.

and i needed somebody to take pictures for my blog, for free.

this particular shoot with raven was a simple one. and by that, i mean we only used one little flash to augment the available lighting. apart from the camera, of course. we just did it at home. with all our dilly-dallying, it occurred to me that i didn’t want perfection. i wanted results. and i wanted them before she outgrows her onesie. because babies grow up too fast. if you’re a parent you’re probably crying buckets over it already. i mean, our baby can barely even walk yet and as early as now, he’s got the whole teenage parties issue sorted out — he’ll go with her. yep, you know, like a chaperone? but he’ll DJ at the parties so as to lessen the weirdness of having her 54-year-old, possibly arthritic, dad rocking the turntables to 90’s R&B with his vinyl collection and an eagle eye to spot his daughter in the crowd. (oh, yeah, he used to DJ. did i tell you that before?)

one of the greatest epiphanies i’ve had in my life was the one i had several weeks ago, buried within the bowels of my twitter timeline on the 27th of february 2017 at 11:11 am:

i’m growing old as fast as my baby’s growing up.

and like those psycho thriller movies based on a true story, it kind of rattles you a bit. shit just got real.

so now i just wanna hold on to these moments while she’s still little. i couldn’t pick the best best ones because there were a lot of best best ones in the lot. i couldn’t stop saying “awww…” while going through the files last night.

has it really been 10 months already?

*raven at 10 months old