I like this photography challenge WordPress is doing for where it lets my mind wander.

This evening’s theme is Moment, stating our life is made up of both big and small moments.

It asked us today to think about fleeting moments we experience daily and encouraged us to play with movement.

As the mother two young kids, and so the official photographer of memories (too bad we don’t have a professional that lives with us), I take a lot of tiny moment pictures.

Here are a few of my favourites from the past summer months (because, like I said yesterday, I’m not quite ready to let the warmth go).

Here’s my eldest dancing on the porch of one of the cottages at our friends’ lodge this summer. The campfire is to the left of the photo and we’d turned the porch into the preschool dance floor each night. My IPhone caught the movement of the ribbon she was playing with, and in honour of tonight’s theme (trying to capture and experiment with movement) I had some fun with Pixlr adding a few over the top effects. Mostly, I was just playing about with the new program – but I swear it’s likely not far off from what she pictures when she dances. Even without the effects, I think it has a certain Lord of the Flies/kiddie freedom feel to it.

This next one is also from the same Lodge:

I love water; I love catching my girls playing in water. And so I love this picture. Here? They are finishing giving Dora a facial. Really.

I also took a series of shots while walking to the corner store one day in early summer. I featured one previously on this challenge, but here’s another:

I enjoyed the feel of this whole afternoon out and meandering about. And this photo GOT CLOSE to capturing the feel.

Then? There are the photos where I manage to capture those looks of pure toddler wonder at new experiences. Like this one:

My youngest in a Wigwam for the first time. You can almost see her trying to work out the concept of a “tent”.

So these are my moments for today’s challenge. But I’ve missed a few days, and Type “A” Me feels this compulsion to try to somehow make weird randomly colliding thoughts fit and so cover off multiple themes.

If you’re game, here comes the tangent.

Above are the tiny moments; the moments of wonder that string together to make my life.

As my husband and I raise our children; and we create these moments; I know to a certain extent that after we’re gone the experiences will carry on and pass forward in their memories and stories to their children.

Among other ways, we also have this china dog that has passed from mother to first daughter in our family for almost 200 years. Each generation adds to the story and I vividly remember when my grandmother brought the dog over for my mother and gave me the story of the women in our family he’d lived with to date.

Our monument, if you will.

One of last week’s challenges asked us to photograph a landmark; and when yesterday asked us for architecture (I have an idea there I will try on Thursday), I immediately thought back to the landmark challenge and the trip my husband and I took to France three summer’s ago.

We stayed a few days in Paris. It was my fourth visit (my husband’s first) and I booked an affordable (ish) hotel in an area close(ish) to the centre of things.

It turned out it was near the Place de la Nation – a park with, as far as we could tell, a rather neglected monument – indications of late night drinking and general litter lay about.

We dutifully went out one day to snap a few shots – ’cause it was big and rather noticeable.

Much to our delight there was a local history lover there who eagerly took the time – once he realized we spoke French – to tell us all about it. He described individual statues in vivid detail bringing it to life for us with his appreciation of it.

And today I found myself remembering that moment, and humming Depeche Mode, and thinking of my moments, and the dog, and realizing any history big or small is very much about the memories and stories those invested in it keep alive and pass along.