We’re at the park. It is a lovely day and Crappy Papa and I are relaxing on a bench and Crappy Boy and Crappy Baby are playing nearby.
The kids find a bug and they are fascinated by it. They gingerly pass it back and forth between them. There is laughter. There is conversation. There is cooperation and wide-eyed brotherly innocence.
It’s a sweet moment.
I suggest taking a picture to Crappy Papa. He nods in agreement. It really is a sweet and special moment.
He has his phone on him so he digs it out of his pocket and gets ready to take a picture.
But he pauses and says:
Seriously.
He does not have that parent thing where he wants to take gobs of photos of the kids like I do. It doesn’t even occur to him.
——–
To be fair to Crappy Husband, it was a pretty cool bug.
Photo of kids’ hands holding/poking at bug? Best of both worlds?
Well, maybe it was, like, a really COOL bug. HA!
My hubby is the same way, caught him taking photos of the rides at Disneyworld, instead of the kids!
😀
I just wanted to say that I love and appreciate the footnotes you include – husbands can be hilarious, but there’s always a fine line between laughing at them as individuals and bashing all dads in general. You always seem to land on the right side of that line, and I love that we can laugh at your husband’s response but it never feels like you’re putting him down (and now I wish you’d been able to include a picture of the bug, too!) 😉
So true though in this case, I think she *could* have safely said that all dads are like this! At least my husband is, lol.
Nope, not all dads. I have taken thousands of more pictures of our kid than my wife.
Yes, it is refreshing to see a blogger poke fun at her husband while still making it obvious that she loves him. Well done!
Notice that Amber wrote, “He does not have that parent thing” with parent being the keyword, rather than making it a mom versus dad thing. These subtle nuances are what makes me keep reading her blog as a single dad. The only parenting blog I enjoy.
Simple. He, like me and every specimen of Homo Sapiens possessing a Y chromosome, is one of them.
I am also always reaching for my phone to take pictures of my boys (almost 1 and 2.5), and my husband is not a big picture taker. Its a nice reminder sometimes to enjoy watching them being adorable together, versus always watching them through the lens of my camera. I feel like it forces you to really try to appreciate _that_ fleeting moment and burn it to memory instead of relying on a photo to always remind you of those special moments. That said, I have 1,700 pictures on my phone, which speaks to how well I succeed in putting my camera down every once in a while 🙂
Angie, I too try to remind myself to put the phone down and just watch my three year old girl, which would be fine since DH always has his out too. And I’m about as successful as you. 🙂
We took the kids to see Day out with Thomas. My youngest didn’t want to go up to Thomas on his own, so I went up with him and asked my husband to take the picture. He did, but he zoomed in on me and the kids, you can’t see Thomas at all! He didn’t understand why I was annoyed by this.
Seriously, I’m with ya.
I feel your pain! 😉 THIS is my husband too!
Totally like my husband. A simple glance into my husband’s photo gallery, there’s maybe 20 pictures of our son taken from the last year, and maybe 3 selfies, and mostly his work schedules. Unlike the thousands on my cell phone.
Hah, this is so us, my iphoto has to be backed up several times a year because there are literally thousands of photos of the kiddos while his iphoto library has just a few dozen dispersed between thousands of photos of classic cars. :/
LMFAO except replace cars with photos taken while fishing with his brother.
My hubby doesn’t take photos period unless asked and when asked he never really seems to get it, so this made me snort!
I haven’t comment in a long time but this one hits close to home as we just got back from a family wedding and because I was in the wedding party I asked my husband to be sure he took some photos, especially of our daughter who was the flower girl. He took four. FOUR, people!
Oh dear, I hope the photographer got some good ones!
I’d like to see the bug, please.
We’re the opposite, he is always the one with the camera documenting everything. He’s a professional photographer though so I’m not sure if this counts, lol!
I have become a New York fashion / National Geographic photographer. Plus contortionist.
In order to take pictures of small children, you have to be.
My husband is not interested in taking photos either, like you said, it doesn’t occur to him I think.
Flipping through my husband’s phone, 90% of the kids photos are of them sleeping, lots of them spanning from birth to present. Either that is when he gets the desire to photograph their sweetness or it is easier to photograph a sleeping target. I think we should make them into creepy, stalker photobooks when they are older.
THIS! A perfect way to use up those free snapfish book offers before the expiration date!
It is so very understood in our family that I am the picture taker that I am referred to as the Mamarazzi!
Love that! 🙂
I am Mamarazzi too!! Glad I’m not the only one 🙂
is it really a man thing? tbh my first reaction would be to get a bug picture.
or maybe it’s just my inner child being fascinated at bugs. yeah let’s go with that.
I’m the woman with 700 pictures of landscapes and bugs and cool leaves and like 10 of my actual children lol Partly because they hate having their pictures taken, and a vista stands still for me 😉
In our house, if my husband is asked to take a picture he responds with the enthusiasm he’d have if I’d asked him to carry a glittery purse around town for me lol He half-heartedly clocks… meh… Then I get this blurry deformation of our worst sides and the moment is gone lol
I gave up asking my hubby about photos a long time ago.
I make sure when I take a photo that it’s close, centered and in a nice place.
Give my hubby the chance. You will be that little speck under a tree in the distance. lol
Haha!! When my first child had her first solid poop… I took a picture and sent it to my husband!! I was proud as punch!! He was confused as to why I had sent it and when I explained to him that I thought it was a pretty poop…. he was disgusted. 😉
Too funny! My husband is the exact same way. I’m the reason we have pictures of the kids.
My husband is the same way. When I spot him and my daughter doing something picture worthy, I take a bunch of shots just to make sure I have at least one great one. I have to hand him the camera or phone and ask that he take a picture of me and my daughter, and if I’m lucky he’ll maybe take two pictures, neither of which is terribly flattering.
YES!
There are never pictures of me! We went to Disney! Hundreds of him and the kids. I could count on my fingers how many with me in them. :/
Agreed. I’m glad I’m not alone on that.
There’s a reason why I have the 64K iPhone and my husband only has the 16K iPhone.
I’m glad I’m not alone.
As a husband I can say I like to take pics of the kids, but I don’t take 100s. Four is plenty, because we get them perfect first time…
Who am I kidding?
Guilty as charged.
But bugs ARE cool.
Some of the comments have the sentiment that most dads don’t take pictures of their children.
I strongly disagree with this.
I have taken nearly 100000 pictures of my son in his 5 years and know of several other dads who did the same.
We’re not professional photographers, but want to record those special moments.
And yes, I do put the camera down and just enjoy my little man.
Amber: Love Love Love the blog and book. Long time reader! Happy to have you back.
There are always exceptions to the norm. In my house, husband doesn’t take photos.
I used to ask my husband to take a picture of me holding the baby. He would zoom in to the baby and take the picture. I have a hundred pictures of my boobs and a baby, but only a few of my face. It wasn’t until the fifth baby that he figured out what I wanted. Lol
My partner takes heaps of photos, but he takes some really bad ones! Like he’ll zoom right up on my face or take it from a horrible angle so ur looking up my nostrils, lol. And when taking pics of the kids, he won’t move from the same place, he’ll just take 50 photos standing in the same spot. I’m like “hunny, don’t be afraid to kneel down or something ya know!” To be fair, they’re not all like that, but I think that’s sheer dumb luck, lol.
Boys like bugs.
I can SO relate to this one. My biggest complaint about my husband’s picture taking is the opposite of another commenter on here. My husband doesn’t seem to understand the concept of zoom. Whenever I ask him to take a picture, he stands a million miles away and snaps the picture. All you can tell is that there is a person in the picture, possibly the gender of the person if you’re lucky, but not the identity of the person in the picture. *smh*