Countdown | Canberra child photography

It was a few days ago… I was transferring some files from one computer to another and reorganising folders in the process, and I noticed something.  There was no ‘June’ folder in my personal photo directory. I looked closer and realised I hadn’t taken any photos of my little boy since the middle of May.

This shocked me because up until now I have photographed avidly at both work and play, and never had a gap like that. Ok, so I’ve had a busy few months, but it’s no excuse. Time goes too fast to miss out on a whole month, especially when your little ones are still so little! And as I get older, it feels like time is moving a little bit faster every single year. I am and have always been an avid documenter of life: I write, I photograph, I collect. Call me crazy, but I can’t bear the thought of forgetting (or not having time) to ritualise the events in my life into some sort of concrete memory! It’s just such a big part of who I am.

In sixteen days, Toby will turn three. Every mother will know exactly what I mean when I confess that each time I say or write those words, my eyes fill with tears and I stop breathing for several seconds. Those three years have gone by so fast, I can hardly comprehend it. My baby has well and truly become a little boy, and every time he does something new and clever, it makes me realise how long gone that baby is and I just want to stop the clock and hold him tight forever.

So in honour of Toby’s third birthday, and also to rectify my neglect in photographing our family life of late, I am going to post a photo every day up to and including his birthday on July 1st. I’m also going to write and share some thoughts and stories along the way. I really hope you enjoy this little journey – please don’t be shy – I’d love to hear some of your thoughts and experiences too!

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I had quite a productive long weekend, part of which included putting the finishing touches on Toby’s room – a work in progress since hmm… August 2007, one month after he was born! Much as I would have loved to have created the dream nursery during the late stages of my pregnancy, our circumstances were such that it was impossible – we were renting and desperately trying to find our own home before Toby was born, our spare room was full of half packed boxes and most of our spare time was spent looking at houses. We moved into our own place when Toby was one month old, and the ‘first time parent’ thing is hardly conducive to oodles of free time (or money) to decorate a pretty room, so nothing happened for a long time. And then it began, bit by bit, piece by piece. The great thing is, that as he grew older, his room needed to be more practical and useful, and it made me think more carefully about long-term solutions and creating a room that he would really enjoy as a little boy, not just something that suited my own aesthetic.

I love the result. There’s loads of Ikea, a few very personal touches, some inspiration from images and websites that I’ve kept in my head over the past few years, and lots of beautiful splashes of bright colour. He absolutely loves it, and funnily enough has been sleeping a lot better than usual lately. I like to think it’s connected!

This image shows only a small part of his room, but it’s got some of the best bits.

The quilt was made by my late Nanna. She was a dressmaker and an amazing quilter. She made this while I was pregnant and sent to us shortly after Toby was born. I used it on the floor of his room when he was a baby (it was great for tummy time), and was super excited to finally put it on his big bed when we set it up just a few months ago. Sadly Toby never got to meet his Great-Nanna, but I bet he treasures this quilt forever.

The stuffed toys (Dragon and Sharkie) are from Ikea – their stuffed toys are always so creative and fun. He loves to make Dragon and Sharkie eat each other.

On the wall to the left is a decal by Wall Candy that I bought from The Hip Infant, one of my favourite online children’s boutiques. I love decals, and it took me ages to decide on one, but I remember being really annoyed after buying it to suddenly discover a whole lot of new ones that I liked a whole lot better were suddenly available! It’s always the way!

The other wall decoration is based on an idea I saw in a photograph by another photographer of her son’s room. I have stretched some cotton tape between two nails and pegged an assortment of photographs and postcards to it. Toby loves it, and ever since I put it up, he tells me every day what’s in each picture – ‘there’s a fwoggie and a cheesy block and some fish and some sharkies and a helicopters and an owl and cars’. Sometimes he’ll add on ‘and there’s Toby with a big icecream cone, yum yum, I like icecream!’, but he usually ignores the rest of the photos.

But the really important thing in this photograph is the book Toby’s reading. The Gruffalo seems to be the Where the Wild Things Are of the Noughties. Toby has always loved it (and we both find it really fun to read it to him), but really developed an obsession over it at the start of the year when the BBC brought out the TV movie. If you have a little one and you haven’t seen this movie, you really must get hold of it; it’s full of the most stunningly magical CGI animation, and the story is beautifully narrated by Robbie Coltrane. Helena Bonham Carter, John Hurt and some other familiar British voices also feature. Toby went through a phase where he just wanted to watch the Gruffalo over and over and over, all day long. We had to ration it and strike serious Gruffalo bargains with him for the first time ever, it was crazy! After watching the movie a few times, he magically knew all the words off by heart and began to recite the entire book at random moments throughout the day. And of course, like most 2 year olds, his pronunciation was far from perfect and we used to giggle adoringly at his efforts. Our absolute favourite was the way he would say ‘and a poisonous wart at the end of his nooooiiiiise’ (instead of ‘nose’). He still loves it, and asks for one of us to read it to him fairly regularly, and if I ask nicely (like I did yesterday when I took this photo), he’ll read it to me.

I would love to know what your favourite book was when you were little, and do you still have it now?

Toby has mine on his shelf – it’s called Noisy Nora, and it’s all about a little girl mouse called Nora who was very noisy, and after being told to be quiet by her parents too many times, she decides to run away and hide. And of course they all miss her because it’s so quiet, but it turns out she was just hiding in the broom closet. I think my parents might have been trying to tell me something when they bought me that one.