We celebrated our son’s second birthday this past weekend, and it seemed like a good time to look back at some other family celebrations from the past.

We have a family web site where we keep some memories.

It’s a great place to share these moments with family and friends who are spread far and wide across two North American countries.

For us, it’s also a place where we know we can always find these photos and videos, and they’ll always be there. We’re not sure where the family "photo box" is right now or the vast and scattered collection of photo albums and videotapes, but we can always find the photos and videos on the web site.

Now that we have a faster Internet connection at home, it’s easier to enjoy the videos, especially.

So last week I sat down with my son and daughter and we watched the video from my daughter’s second birthday party.

My daughter just loved watching it! She really got a kick out of seeing herself about three years ago when she was the same age as her little brother is now.

She just smiled and laughed as we watched these videos, over and over and over.

Andy, my two-year-old son, however, had a different reaction.

He watched with intense interest, but he had a very worried look on his face.

He seemed a little confused.

I suppose it was because he isn’t used to seeing "big sister" back when she was a two-year-old. Perhaps he was mystified by this technology that allows us to look back in time.

When it comes to home movies, I’m afraid Andy will suffer from what I call "second child syndrome."

The early years of our first child, Molly, are extremely well documented. There are so many photos and so many videos. With the first child there is very much excitement and new parents are anxious to capture every moment.

Things are often a little different with the second child.

There seems to be fewer photos and in our case, the video camera stopped working so there are fewer videos of Andy and his baby sister Ada. We talked about getting a new one, but somehow we haven’t been able to find the funding in the family budget yet.

With three kids now, we are finding there is less and less room in the family budget for lots of things!

As a child, I also was a victim of "second child syndrome." My parents had an eight millimeter movie camera and there are many reels capturing my brother’s first seven years on film.

The movie camera stopped working shortly after I came along, though, and I suppose there weren’t funds in the family budget for its repair back then. There are a few glimpses of me as a baby on film, but as a kid, I often wished there were more. As a bigger kid, it’s kind of neat to look back and see yourself when you were a littler kid.

Nostalgia – pictures, movies, etc. are fun to look at from time to time, but it’s also fun to enjoy the moments without the burden of photographing and video recording these experiences.

The memories are still there, and always will be, whether or not they are captured on Kodachrome or as digital computer files.