The Gold is in the Background

I love the things you see in candid pictures. That’s why I don’t mind it when kids get behind the camera. The shots are more spontaneous; you can tell no one has tried to get the Pepsi cans out of the way first.This is a nice candid one on the left here that tells the rest of the story about that bad set of splinters our six-year-old got from a splintery old dock. Here you see him just after he'd been taped and bagged and bound and sealed before trying for a quick dip, all because the doctor who did the surgery had said no swimming for three days - but it was 95 degrees and so muggy the clams were steaming themselves. (He lasted maybe ten minutes before the foot was thoroughly soaked by lake water that one adult there present described as 'a bath of pathogens.' He had a fresh soak then in hot saline solution poor kid and no more swimming after that.)Then consider this photo from my post on Monday:It was taken by Splinter Child, and shows his older brother getting hugged by his grandfather while at the same time in the background showing our honorary son Dodson carrying down the first three or four items of the hundred  or so such items all new parents seem to haul around whenever they travel with their baby. When I put this up yesterday and placed the link to the story on Facebook I heard from the famous Emily McDowell, who I first met as a three-year-old in 1979. "Do I spy my print on the wall of the NH house?" she wrote last night.She sure did spy her own print, one of many such prints that you can see on her Etsy page here. Take a look at these two 'details'  of it. I bought the print for $35 a year ago, had it framed it for of maybe another 60 bucks and wouldn't part with it now for anything.   Remember your own crazy adolescence and all the mistakes you made? Talk about gold in the background! I especially like  The Vast Forest of I Can't Believe We're Not Dead. Take a more extended look at all Em's stuff here.