You blink and they're gone..........

My picture for this week is a graphic I made to use on the swim schedule for last year. Like many sports teams they make a poster to post in businesses around town. The high school is large enough that it generally doesn't make sense to try and have all the team members, so the seniors receive a little special attention and recognition by being featured. The picture on the surface probably isn't that impressive, however let me share some background. The boys wanted the white t's and jeans, so I thought maybe we could grunge it up a bit with being in front of an old building where I love to take pictures. I also used one of my very favorite products, a filter for photoshop called, Topaz. LOVE IT! Well, the picture itself should have been fairly straight forward except for the day of the pictures, not everyone was available. Not giving up, we shot without them...... Now some would have said too bad, so sad, you just won't be in the picture, but not me, the mother in me wanted all of them in it.

We set up with the five that showed up and did what we could. I took two more the following week at the school and then the other two separately when we could. It was kind of a challenge but I think we managed to pull it off and no one knew they weren't all there at once. The boys were even amazed and it gave me the opportunity to remind them not to believe everything they see in print.

The seniors from last year were very special to me, considering one of them was my own baby. When I first saw this picture again it made me think how quickly it all passed. From a sputtering little toddler in the bath tub to a gigantic fish in the pool. And at 6'4" when he wore his full body suit, he was quite intimidating, like a big shark. It still makes me smile when I think of the first time I saw him with that on......... oh my. He even had a little speech he made at the end of the year about his "magic suit." I remember once the paper was interviewing after a meet where he had done particularly well and he was quoted as saying, "it was the new suit, I just felt faster" or something like that, he took a lot of ribbing about that for a while. At the end of the year I made books for the coaches and each kid had a page and was encouraged to write a personal note to the coach and we typed it and included it in the book. I used the poster picture for the cover and another picture of many of the medals for the back. It turned out really well. And in Brett's graduation book, I included a page about the "magic suit".



Looking back it is hard to believe that one minute they are needing a bandaid because they fell and skinned their knees and are sure they are going to bleed to death  and the next they have blood running down their legs from trying to shave their sasquatch-like legs with a disposable razor. (swim parents will get that...)

I know the phrase- you blink and they are gone - is so cliché, but it is so true. And now I've blinked.