The grit in our lives...

I grabbed a great picture the other morning. We were waiting for the F train and the girls were sitting together on the steps. They happened to both be smiling at the same time and the occasionally reliable camera on my phone actually caught the moment! It was amazing, so I tossed it up onto Facebook to share it with everyone. My caption for the photo described how I was too stunned by seeing both of them smile at the same time to think about how much sludge was collecting on their tushes. Every time they sit on the subway steps I cringe a little, but I've come to terms with it and realized that I'd rather just let them get a little dirty than walk way down the platform to sit on the bench (and you should hear the stories they tell about what kind-of germs and bacteria are on New York City subway platform benches).

As the comments trailed down in Facebook, I joked that I should photoshop out the steps and put a nice grassy meadow in the background. But, one of my friends disagreed, and said,

"I like the subway steps - gives it that urban grit feeling that reflects our lives so well."

She then goes on to describe her favorite picture of her daughter that shows her dancing in a performance at a big street fair, in front of a dirty metal storefront grate. Then she concluded,

"Let's face it - our kids are true New Yorkers and this is their life!"

And she was right! I thought about it some more and realized that some of my favorite photos of my kids are the true city scenes, like the one with them in colorful raincoats, also in front of a metal storefront grate. Another favorite is of my older daughter sitting on the train with her hood on, looking like a true 4-year-old bad-ass (sortof). In the end, anyone can have a an idyllic photo of their child sitting in the grass in a huge field of flowers, but I'm happy to be living in a place where the images I capture, grit and all, look a little more interesting than your average Sears Studio photo.

This is an original post to NYC Moms Blog. When not taking pictures of her kids milking rats (instead of cows ;), Dina G is a Web Project Manager. She writes about the parallels between project management and parenting on her blog The Critical Chain.