My younger son, Eli, age two, loves being wrapped in his lion towel after a bath in our Springfield, Ill., home.

The other day I had 75 minutes of quiet time in the car to think (well, first I listened to loud music, then I thought). I had been going through the year’s photos, choosing family pictures to print for grandparents. Certain images held my interest in a way they hadn’t at the time I took them. I kept returning to photos that revealed my two young sons’ independence and vulnerability. My presence as the unseen adult was implied but not part of the picture. The pictures resonate with me because they describe a kind of flow state important to childhood. That morning I read yet another devastating article about childhood sexual abuse. The innocence shown in the photographs seemed all the more special, and all the more fragile. “The Bubble” gallery