My Baby
Everyday life · Birth to 5 years
Film the ordinary
The bath, the feed, the walk home. Nobody films the ordinary because it feels like it will last forever, and the ordinary is what vanishes without warning.
What nobody films
We film birthdays, holidays and firsts. We do not film the seven in the morning nappy change, the middle-of-the-night feed, the walk to nursery. And that is exactly what disappears completely, because it is what feels like it will last forever.
What to film this week
- A whole meal, start to finish, with the mess and your patience running out.
- The bedtime ritual, with the song you use.
- Twenty seconds of the bath, with the voice of whoever is giving it.
- The walk from home to somewhere you go every week.
- The corner of the house where she spends the most time, filmed slowly, with nobody in the frame.
How to film without staging
A short clip, landscape, without talking to the camera. Do not ask her to look or call her name: it is the natural scene that has value, and it dies the moment anyone notices they are being filmed.
Why now
Today's routine will no longer exist six months from now. It is not growth that erases it, it is replacement: every stage swaps the whole routine, and the previous one disappears without anyone having recorded a thing.
More ideas for this stage
Letter idea
Write down what nobody will remember
The smell of her head, the sound she makes while feeding, the way she grips your finger. These are the first things to go. One sentence is enough.
Photo idea
The photo of the hands
Your hand next to hers, in the same photo. It is the image that most astonishes years later, because that scale never comes back.
Letter idea