The camera is ready.  Ready to capture you over and over again.  From your smiles to that way when you furrow your brow because something has definitely captured your attention.  You are only three months old, but I know your older brother has had three times as many pictures taken as you have. 

I said I would never be one of those parents.  What you are soon to find out about me, is that you can easily call me an "Even Steven."  This is why the camera is always ready.  Something in me triggers this sense of injustice if I do not give you the exact same things your brother had.  What can I say?   I'm a middle child.  Bring it up with Gammie. 

Remember the time I fell asleep feeding you those first few weeks?  It was because mommy had stayed up late one night when I should have been sleeping, just so I did not have to endure one more day without an even number of pictures hung around the house of the both of you.  Three of your brother, three of you.  It could not be any other way.  So, the camera is always ready.  But why are there still fewer pictures of you?  Because you are my last baby.

Something occurred to me today, when I was holding you and I was singing and you were smiling.  If I reached over for that camera, I would have broken the moment.  You would no longer be staring at mommy's face.  You would be staring at a gray box placed in front of mommy's face.  I guess this is why I rarely capture you on film with that gorgeous smile.  

You do not want to look at the camera, you want to look at your mommy.  I can not miss these opportunities.  But, they are in my mind.  Yes, they are there.  I want them there so badly, to enjoy and savor every moment; even though the camera is always ready, I dare not pick it up.  I want to see you through my eyes, not the camera's.  You are the last chance I get to store direct contact, direct memories, of a gift so preciously given over to me. 

Thus, one of these days if you have inherited mommy's unrelenting, meticulous, and obsessive fairness gene, (and poor daddy if that happens), and you ask why there are more pictures of your brother than of you, this is my explanation for it.  I feel a need to offer it to you.  It would only be fair that way.