Resistance is futile. Somewhere, out there, there must be a law for online citizens that reads something like, “Except as otherwise provided by statute, all photos, real or personal, wherever situated, of children born during a person’s membership of  Facebook must be posted for other users perusal, comment and ‘Like.'”

So yeah, I succumbed to the repeated queries of, “why haven’t you posted pictures of Michael on Facebook?” I’d been resisting for a few reasons.

Everything is online now, obviously. But I admit that I kind of admire people who have managed to stay offline — not even Trinity has managed that feat, thanks to me, even though he has no membership on any of these social networking sites. However, one big reason I’d kept Michael off Facebook up until now is a few stories I’d come across while at work — what if someone stole a photo of Michael or our family and used it for some purpose like an advertising campaign in the Czech Republic or in a Craiglist scam. (Yes, I’ve had to cut and write headlines for each story for work in the past year.) Of course, posting photos on my own personal blog kind of defeats that purpose, but I don’t have a huge readership and my site is way off the grid compared to Facebook.

Besides that, Facebook is someone else’s site. I have a website that I pay to keep online. Why should I post my photos on someone else’s website? Especially someone else’s website that hasn’t even been around as long as mine has been. Even though I share photos of myself and Trinity and my favorite landscape shots liberally, I am naturally more protective of Michael’s photos. And once you upload photos to someone else’s website, there’s no telling what that website or the company that owns it will do with it later on down the line. I don’t know how accurate this story is, but the thought of Facebook storing so many copies of my photos makes me want to keep Michael off of Facebook.

But, I think the biggest reason why I wanted to keep Michael’s photos restricted to my site is because Facebook enables passive communication. Remember how people used to keep in touch? They would visit, send a letter or even — gasp — make a phone call. On Facebook, people just watch the News Feed or Status Updates. I’m not having that. I’m a big getter-together of people. In my circles, I’m usually the organizer. So as active a social person as I am, it turns me off that Facebook allows people to keep in contact in such a lazy way. So I figured — you know what? If people want pictures of Michael, they better come to my site. It’s not quite a visit, a letter or a phone call, but its better than just allowing people to sit on their butts, watching the News Feed for photos of Michael.

But I did break down last night and upload a few photos. Why? I only did it because A) these folks were coming to visit Michael, so I figured, might as well upload these photos to Facebook where I could tag them and their friends could see the photos. And B) I figured it was not an exclusive, close-up photo of Michael (like the ones I post here), so no biggie.

Anyway, here are a few more photos.

We joked that this photo was kind of like Michael telling Trinity, “talk to the hand.”

Trinity snapped this photo Sunday morning when he couldn’t sleep anymore (too many NBA games on…) and I had picked up Michael because he was being fussy in his bassinet. I should be embarrassed, but I love this photo.

I snapped this photo while Trinity was at the dentist and texted it to him with the message, “daddy where are you?” It’s now Trinity’s wallpaper. :)