It hadn’t really occurred to me that I wasn’t in any of our family photos until a friend who is involved in all things social media, asked that I send her a picture of myself and after spending several minutes scouring files labelled “family trip to the beach,” “summer 2008,” “birthday, 2009” I quickly realized, I am the family photographer and never the subject.

I was able to find a pic of myself, at least half of my face, or, the shadow of half of my face, hiding behind Ellie’s third birthday cake and I wondered how I set up the tri-pod to capture that moment as I am the sole picture taker in our family (aside from Ellie and all of her pics are of the Tim Horton’s drive-thru staff. It would be tough to convince them that is my hair-net or pocketless uniform pants).

Growing up as a middle child, I was also left out of any individual photo ops and not unlike Ellie’s third birthday, ironically, the first picture of me from birth to age three that is independent of several boys waving Superman capes and dangling crayfish or frogs in the background was on my third birthday. My parents will argue there are pics of me in my crib as an infant but I recognize those big-boy Wrestle-mania pyjamas anywhere.

On the plus side, there will be no scrapbook, documenting my attempt at curly hair, my massive weight-gains with each pregnancy or my genuine interest in denim overalls. Perhaps being the photographer isn’t the worst thing in the world.

The only downside is when your children ask if you actually joined them for any of the fun day-trips they’ve been re-living through pictorial travel-logs, you have no proof, it’s as though you were never there. Thank God for digital photography. I’ve been able to super-impose myself into just about anyone’s family holidays.

Finally that pic “baby girl age three” has come in handy.