As a parent, you find yourself saying phrases like:

Time flies. The kids grow up too fast. It goes by in a flash. The kids have gotten so big! Can you believe that was XX years ago?

The sentiment behind each of these suggests it all happens so fast you’re going to miss something. The trick, is to remember that you were there in each moment. You saw every sight, heard every sound, smelled every smell. Felt the embrace of your child, and the touch of your lips on their forehead.

The mind doesn’t catalog every piece of sensory information and record it to replay at will whenever you like. Even simple things like the way something looked, or sounded become diluted over time, buried under layer upon layer of experiences had since.

So my advice? Take a photo, shoot some video.

The act of putting the camera between me and my family can sometimes make me feel like I’m not participating. But I promise you it’s so very worth it. Because in those moments when I turn to my wife and say “Wow. The kids have gotten so big,” I can look at the photo or footage I shot, and remember. Really remember. Because it’s brutal, but it’s true. Time flies.

Fireworks was cut together from some family footage I shot on the Fourth of July. As I edited the piece I made decisions—some conscious, some not—about what footage to place, what kind of transitions to use, which music felt right. The final video captured is so eerily similar to my own memory of that evening that when I watch it, it takes me right back to that night. I see how beautiful my wife looked. I hear the sound of our daughter’s voice excited by the fireworks, and the silly jokes our son told as we waited for the show to begin. And I feel the cool drops of drizzling rain as we laid on the pavement—still warm after a long hot day.

It helps me remember that I was there in that moment—and I’m a lucky man.