A Picture Is Worth A Few Years

Monday night is the high school soccer banquet. One of the traditions is to present a slide show with pictures of the graduating seniors. Each parent is asked to submit 7 or 8 pictures of their child. This is a lot harder that I thought it would be. How do you represent 17 or 18 years of life in a few images? I decided that I wanted to show the side of Brooke that not everyone knows. I wanted pictures of her doing things other than playing soccer. But which ones should I use?

In going through the boxes of photos (because I have never been organized enough to get them into albums) I came across those very first pictures. You know the ones in the hospital where the baby looks great and mom looks like shit. Scratch those. Then there are the ones in the cute little infant clothes that the kid only wore once. Nah. I knew the bathtub pictures were a "no go".

I finally settled on the following infant picture. I knew that after about age two, Brooke stopped smiling for pictures. I figured that I had better get one while the getting was good.

The Brooke that everyone knows now is the sarcastic, somewhat cynical kid. I chose the next picture because no one would ever believe her to be a clown.

Even when only three, Brooke had a fondness for cooking. I suspect that even back then we were willing to eat what she made.

The next picture was taken in the mountains of New Mexico. Brooke is holding an injured baby hummingbird. We did nurse it back to health and set it free. This was her first step to becoming a full fledged member of PETA.

Since about age 8, Brooke has been a soccer keeper. So, I had to include the obligatory goalie shot. Though I am a little sad that I will not get to see her play soccer anymore, I am very thankful that we made it through 13 years of soccer with no head injuries from colliding with the goal box and I no longer have to worry!

Brooke and Erin are remarkably close. I felt like I needed to include at least one picture of the two of them. This is Brooke's 8th grade graduation and Erin's 5th grade at Selwyn. It is also one of only two pictures that I have of Brooke dressed up. She cleans up pretty well bu this is a well kept secret.

I really did not want to use another soccer picture but Brooke made me take out the one where she had a mixing bowl on her head. . .probably because it was taken when she was 16, not 2.

Brooke wanted to include a picture with both of the dogs. Unfortunately it was very late at night and I had almost no battery left on my camera at the time so the choice of pictures was not good. I guess it gets the point across.

Notice that they all have on their Harley Davidson duds.

I know that most of you are not really interested in mom's brag book. Thanks for humoring me. I will leave you with one more picture. Needless to say, this one is not in the senior slide show.

Adidas is more willing to sit still for pictures than either Brooke or Harley.