What you will want to share?

I am part of a generation that is obsessed with itself. We love Facebook and Instagram and selfies and jazzing up the mundane with filters and clever hashtags. Now that my peers are having kids, nearly every minute of a child's life is documented online, starting with conception. An old friend recently had a baby and shared that she and her husband would NOT be posting any pictures out of respect for the baby's privacy. I love this. More people need to do this. This in itself will probably be a topic for another post down the road. 

I'm guilty of posting the occasional selfie and tagging myself at hipper locals than my usual hangouts, though I try to keep the updates to a minimum. My husband does a great job at keeping me in check. My phone is full of boring selfies, many of which are of me in the passenger seat while my husband drives, most likely rolling his eyes. 

On our way to the zoo for the 7th time. This picture was not necessary.

On our way to the zoo this morning, he brought up an interesting thought in response to me rationalizing that if we have kids someday, it'll be neat to show them what we did when we were young. In response, his point was that with the thousands of pictures our generation will accumulate of themselves, the "here is us on our way to the zoo for the 100th time," "this is a fancy cocktail I had one night," and "this is me in the bathroom after a 1 mile run at the gym," will do nothing to impress our kids. We should be striving to DO more and document less. 

After that pointless picture above, I put the phone away and enjoyed a few hours of animal watching with my husband. The park is so much more fun without feeling like I need to take a perfect picture and to edit and post online. Our Christmas present this year was an annual membership to the zoo, so it'll be one of many visits this year, and something that isn't special enough to memorialize every single time. 

Instead, I should be striving for more of this for my kids:

Here is mom marrying your dad on a beach in Kuai:

Here is your mom doing her first Ironman:

Here is your mom moonlighting as a professional bellydancer:

Here is your mom conquering her fear of dying on a motorbike during a road trip around Bali with new friends:

In the next couple days I'll post the "30 Before 30" list I've been working on for the last few days. Everything on that list will be something I'll be proud to share with my kids. Running a 5k and baking the perfect pie won't be making the cut.