Does cleaning out your phone’s photo storage give you anxiety or is it just me? Ugh. I’ve been an image hoarder since before I can remember.

Always the first one taking out her camera.

Do I need this photo of my child destroying a random plate of pasta from the Cheesecake Factory from 5 years ago? How about this 2 minute video of my child doing nothing because I swore he said “mama” for a half second and I didn’t get my phone out fast enough so it’s just footage of him staring off into space?

When I’m going through and deleting things, the answer is yes. I need it. I NEED IT. You never know what’s going to happen. Your hard drive might crash. Your computer might be burgled. A million other things.

Yet, one thing we all know is certain, our babies are going to grow up. Today’s incoherent baby babbles will become unsolicited articulated opinions.

Our babies grow up, and we are left holding onto little files on our phones.

Documenting their little moments is so important. Hard as you try to not forget, our memories fade, and you might forget the face you’ve sworn you’d memorize and that no amount of time would erase.

Mama, when was the last time you got in the shot yourself? When was the last time you felt proud of the beautiful woman you are, and had your photo taken with your littles? When I was younger, I would flip through old family photo albums and see them filled with blurry timestamped photographs of forced smiles and Pizza Hut birthdays and red-eyed cheesy poses in homemade Halloween costumes, but we had very little documentation of the authentic, intimate, love-filled moments between my mother or father, and us.

These are the moments that I love capturing. These are the moments worth remembering, long after our memories cloud and we forget.

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