The story behind the picture.

You know how Facebook does this thing now called "On This Day" and it's a bunch of highlights of stuff you have posted in the past on that date?  I get a big kick out of it.  (Well, maybe not the day it remembered that my dog had died.  Gee, thanks Facebook for that special memory!) I love seeing pictures from years ago of the Kiddo when he was little and had big squishy cheeks that I just want to reach into my phone and take a bite of them.

Today's shot is one of him when he was 6.  He was in CARS pajamas and laying under the Christmas tree.  More specifically, laying under the tree skirt. Yep, he used to love to snuggle up under the cheepo fake snow cottony fabric like it was a blanket and just stare up at the tree.  Side note, kind of odd we try to pretend the tree is surrounded by some swatch of snow.  Normally snow in the house would be a bad sign but then again, how often do pine trees sprout up in living rooms?

Anywho, it was one of the many nights that he was doing this and I just had to take some pictures to upload to Facebook because it was so freaking adorable I almost couldn't stand it.  I'm all "Look at him!" to my husband, wanting to share sweet moment with him.  Daddy Fry as I recall, wasn't amused.  In fact, he was kind of annoyed.  He was concerned that the Kiddo was going to mess up the tree.

Now practically speaking, he was probably right. (Hey Babe!  Look at that.  You have me admitting you were right in print. You best print this blog post up and frame it!) The Kiddo could of knocked off some ornaments or possibly the tree itself.  He could have been hurt or the dog too.

But all I saw was my Kiddo being his #TeamQuirky self.  I love how his brain works and this was one of those very cool moments where you see an example of how he plays.  Is it typical? Nope.  Is it interesting? Hell yeah! Not to mention, kind of genius.  Who doesn't love staring at a big lit up Christmas tree? I still do.  The fact that he was like "Oh, I'm a tad chilly. I'll just use this cloth here to cuddle up." was pretty brilliant.

At that moment, that wasn't the battle I was going to fight.  So I ignored my husband as I am apt to do and took a billion pictures. On my 97 shot, I kind of got the Kiddo to sort of look at the camera.  Success!

But it's interesting to me now when I see the cute shot that there was more to the story than what appears.  I know that's probably the case for a lot of you who read this too. Even if your kids are not autistic or special needs.  There's always more to that picture.

So just try to remember that the next time you find yourself in a funk about not getting the perfect shot and seeing someone else's and lamenting "Why can't that be us?".  You don't know what went into that.  You don't know if the parents are annoyed at each other or if a meltdown happened 20 minutes later or whatever.

Dammit, tonight I am going to lay under the tree and see if the Kiddo does it with me.  ;-)