Portrait of the Artist as a Toddler

Today’s Prompt: Ekphrasis post. Ekphrasis (writing about another art form) – Find a Flickr Image in Creative Commons that inspires you in some way (positively or negatively) and free write about it. Give yourself exactly 15 minutes to write without stopping.

I'm going to go a slightly different direction today. Instead of commenting on a photo I found on the internet, I'm going to go with photos I've found on my phone. That I didn't take.

Sweetie likes the camera on my new iPhone 4S. She unlocks the phone, opens the app, and starts clicking the shutter. So I end up with these photo shoots by my 21 month old daughter.

I can't delete them. I just can't bring myself to do it. In a sense, I feel that it's art. It's self-portraiture. It's a sign of her budding sense of exploration. It's peering into her world when I wasn't in the room. Or sometimes even when I was:

She was seated right behind me on the couch. I didn't even know she had my phone until a few minutes later. And then I found a series of three or four photos of an adorable chunky thigh.

I open my photo reel to find these little gems I didn't know were there. And I always wonder what she was thinking. Was it the sound it makes? The thrill of watching the screen flash?

She recognizes herself (and Mama and Dada) in photos, says "cheee" when you hold up a camera, pretends to take pictures with anything small and rectangular...so does she know she's taking pictures when she's using my phone? Is she going to be some kind of avant garde photographer?

Or was she just looking for the Elmo's Monster Maker app?

I don't know. It just strikes me every time I recognize just how much she's her own person. At less than 2 years old, she has goals, interests, a sense of humor. Belly buttons are deserving of riotous laughter. She has a favorite t-shirt. She doesn't just say the word "pear" - she starts it out softly and then screams the last half of it. I never stopped to think that you could draw the word "pear" out that long.

As I watched her at breakfast this morning, I marveled to my husband about what an incredibly happy child she is.

But, seriously, y'all. I'm running out of space in my photo reel.

This post was written as part of NHBPM - 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J.