All of Me

So, I was looking through some pictures to find an interesting one of me to use as my profile picture on my Facebook page, and something occurred to me. There are none. I mean, there are pictures of me, but they are generally just parts of me...my arms as I cradle my son as a newborn, my feet as I stand by my child as he struggles to stand up as a toddler, my hands steadying his bicycle as he climbs on for the first time, my back as I kneel before him and fix his costume for the school play, a very unflattering one of me on hands and knees as I "trot" around the kitchen with my cowboy on my back...the list goes on. And, as time has gone by, the pictures of me seem to stop altogether. There is one of me all dressed up to go out a few years back, but I am not smiling because I am worried that my son will not have fun with the sitter. There is another one that you can practically SEE the stress on my face because it is my son's first day at a new school and I'm anxious that he will be nervous and scared. There are a few family pictures of all of us from vacations and other outings, but in general our family photographs consist of my child and husband. Of course I am there; who else would be taking the pictures? But, it's strange to look back and have such vivid memories but so little evidence that you were really there. I know that eventually the trend will reverse; when my son no longer wants to be seen with his parents, and there will be more and more pictures of him by himself and with his friends, and more pictures of me and my husband, together, doing things we really like to do. But for now, and I wouldn't have it any other way, I'll have to look at pictures of only parts of me and know that I was (and still am) truly there.