The Lamentation of a Camera-less Mommy

I am camera-less for an undetermined amount of time. That word- undetermined- scares the wits out of me. The camera had some trouble reading the memory card from time to time; then all of a sudden it decided that the thousands of pictures we take every couple of months was just too much for it to handle and it gave its notice by displaying the words “system failure 10” on the LCD screen. The camera would have been three years old next month. Of course these things happen on holidays when help-desks everywhere are closed. I have the faultiest memory ever, and I rely heavily on still pictures to preserve all of those once-in-a-lifetime moments that happen multiple times a day at our house. A dull sense of all-pervading dread settles on me when I see one of the kids about to do something funny or contort their features into a funny face: I feel as though they should put all cuteness and silliness on hold until I have the means to take snapshots again. At one point the strain became too great and I decided that I needed to bake homemade brownies to facilitate some stress eating. They didn’t last too long.