Ode to the Digital Age & Losing teeth

It wasn't so long ago that I can remember taking pictures with film, finishing a roll and taking it in for developing. Then after a day or two wait you could pick them up, and surprise! You could see what you tried to take pictures of and which ones actually turned out. That was the norm and it was fun.

However, had the digital age not taken over our lives, I would have been able to nothing about the boogers in the corner of my daughters nose that I hadn't realized were there till I looked down in my preview screen and got grossed out by them (as you will too if you look too closely at the first happy picture). We wiped her nose and took another picture. Waa-laa!

Now, to the second line of thought rolling around in  my brain. This morning I found my little stash of baby teeth I have collected from my children's tooth fairy (a lovely little stuffed pillow given to me when I was young, to hold the tooth overnight until the "real" tooth fairy could come and pay out - after all she is in the business of necklace making and the best teeth get paid more for) and began to wonder to myself. Why do we (or maybe its just me, though I doubt it) hold on to those baby teeth? Is it to one day show our children how little they once were, after they've outgrown the tooth fairy and are wise to mom & dad? Or is it to remind us of how little they actually were, not just from a picture, but from a tangible piece of them? Maybe its both for me. Now I certainly don't plan to actually make a necklace of teeth, but I keep my babies teeth in my jewelry box, up on a high shelf, lest they discover them, because they are valuable to me. They are invariably a part of me as well, and all I sacrificed to bring those babies into this world, and how much I love them. To me they are priceless. I guess I am officially a mom, I keep invaluable things which I declare priceless just because they are from my children. So be it!