Probably the best thing I ever got since I've been married to the military is our digital camera. Hands down, it has been used and toted around and whatnot more than any other product since that point. Pictures of me when he was first deployed. Pictures of our baby the day she was born and the first weeks of her life when the pictures came by putting the camera into the isolette with her. Digital pictures flew around the world during her first birthday and second summer of life when her daddy was overseas on the Big Tin Can of a boat. Sorry, ship. I meant, ship.

Something I mean to do someday is to make a scrapbook or two. There are tons of scrapbook page ideas to be found at Ritz Cameras, one of the leaders in photography. Right now we're using an HP. Digital photography is particularly good for our family because I inherited my picture-taking gene from my mother- you know the one. The one which makes half-people headless, where your hands jerk and your eyes close reflexively when you press the button, and maybe one of every hundred that gets developed actually has a usable picture. Digital changed all of that for me. My mistakes are fewer with the picture finder. My mistakes can be erased. And the precious smile of my little girl can be instantly sent to her grandmothers on the eastern side of the country as well to her daddy when he's away.

A picture says a thousand words. How much more so does the picture of a sleeping toddler, worn out, clutching her daddy's shoe to her chest? He may not have been here physically sometimes, but he got to share those moments.