The Art in Life

I love these lazy summer days.

Today feels like the start of true and unfettered summer. I have had childcare two full days a week since my semester ended so that I could really focus on making headway on my dissertation. I had some lofty goals (Introduction! Finish Chapter 3! Finish Chapter 4!) for these past 6 weeks, and I almost met all of them, which I am still counting as a success. On the other three days a week, Henry and I have been trying to fit in as much summer fun as possible, all while tying up some loose ends of semester-related responsibilities and summer goals (Purge all the things! Make an album! Tackle scary mountain of paperwork that has grown on my desk! Edit photos from a wedding I shot!). But now… most of that is done.

Turkish towels are CLUTCH summer gear. They dry so fast and double as an aesthetic photo element.

Hello, sweet sweet summer.

I like to make June the productive summer month, because as those temperatures rise, my ability to get things done drops. And that’s ok.

Because the sweetness of summer is directly tied to its ability to slow us down, to hold us still, to convince us that porch-sitting, park-lying, lemonade-sipping is the best way to fill our days. I love the laziness of summer, love days that are full of fun, and light on preparation. I like it when our big decisions are between the pool and the splashpad, between the park or the sidewalk. Which Henry loves as much as the park, because he likes to climb up everyone’s steps. If you live on Capitol Hill and you have front steps, we have probably trespassed.

He’s just biding his time before we can finish at the splash pad and he can find some good stairs to climb. .

Total slide troll, that one.

Securing this lazy summer isn’t easy, even for someone who has the luxury of summer’s off, which is the best part of my profession. There are so many commitments that are tempting to make, and the daily impulse to complicate life is ubiquitous. You have to fight for easiness. The second half of our summer has a decent amount of travel, so I am extra intense about making the days at home feel sweet and slow.  Basically, my summer motto has three components:

1. Go outside as much as possible.
2. Try to do free things.
3. Get snacks.

The second one is to offset both the third one, and summer travels. It also helps us choose creative or simple options over lavish outings. Luckily, DC is full of amazing and free summer offerings, everything from local parks to museums to splash pads and pools that are free (!) for residents. And summer snacks are so fun. The ice cream after the splash pad, the iced coffee on a morning walk, the tacos under the trees – I love the treats of summer.

Henry and his favorite splash pad toy: a stroller cup-holder. He gets very intense about trying to use it to dump water… which is tricky, since it has holes.

But we also have some tools and tricks that help give that lazy summer vibe to our days. Here are some of the things that make my summer (and life in general) easier. Most of these you can buy, because problems solved by buying random things is sometimes simpler than a complicated DIY fix.

The cup-holder did have some competition from this delicious sunscreen bottle.

Alexa. Y’all, ALEXA. We were so skeptical. What if she stole all our secrets? What if she ordered lots of random stuff? But we disabled the automatic buy feature, and we don’t have very interesting secrets. Instead, I have a robot who acts as the DJ to our summer jam sessions, lets me know the weather we are facing without my having to pull out a phone, and tells jokes or plays comedian routines on command.

Amazon Prime. Related to Alexa, I know, but Amazon Prime means that I spend less time in the store, and more time blowing bubbles with my baby. Who can’t blow bubbles and prefers to play with the plastic container instead of the actual bubbles. BUT STILL. I know that everyone is thankful for Amazon Prime, but I don’t to take its magic for granted.

Grocery Delivery. Time spent buying groceries and hauling them up my stairs is better spent playing in the park. Ordering my groceries also helps me avoid impulse buying and plan meals better.

Gathre mat. Ok, I totally judged these for awhile, as it seemed an obscene cost for a mat to put under your high chair. But then I was digging scrambled eggs out of my rug and constantly trying to get up all crumbs, only to still leave enough food bits to attract nice. Not acceptable. I snagged a mat during a sale and it really makes cleanup easier and quicker, which leaves more time for summer fun.

Lysol wipes. Do not spend all summer cleaning. A quick wipe down with these pretty frequently prolongs the time I can go before stopping everything and devoting time to a deep clean.

Meal planning. I love meal planning, because I love to eat good meals, but I hate to spend too much time planning and prepping during the week. For me and my Type A personality, a little bit of planning Sunday nights makes for easy weeks that have good food with little time or energy. (Don’t worry- I will someday inflict a whole post on meal planning on you, so GET EXCITED NOW!) In planning, I try to plan healthy and simple meals that are cheap, have leftovers, don’t require tons of time in the kitchen, and clean up quickly. Which brings us to…

Crockpot. I have waxed poetic about my love for my electronic sister-wife before, but I think the Crockpot is too often forgotten in the summer. I love nothing more than tossing some meat, veggies, and spices in in the morning and then coming home after a day of summer adventures and finding taco filling or pulled pork.

Sandwiches. Some of my mom friends talked about the moment they “remembered” PBJ’s, and one day – it happened. I was trying to steam some broccoli to take with us to the park so Henry could have a balanced lunch, and then I was like – why am I doing this??? He can have his PBJ (ok, almond butter), feed it to himself while he plays, and I could have more freedom in our outings. James and I are also devoted to BLT and watermelon being the perfect summer meal on a regular basis.

There is a direct correlation between the quality of a summer day, and how messy he is by the end of the day.

What are the things, tricks, and products that make your life easier? Share em’ all so I can keep making this the laziest summer ever.

Henry nursed for the last time on a Saturday morning several weeks ago, shortly after turning one.

Nursing was not something I joyfully anticipated while pregnant. I wasn’t enamored with the bonding it offered, wasn’t looking forward to someone needing my body around the clock. I was going to do it because it was easiest, cheapest, and (supposedly) best for my baby, but that was it. Perhaps because I went into it unexcited, or perhaps because it is much harder than many people think, but I was not a fan. I struggled with supply, Henry was the world’s slowest eater, and I felt so trapped. 6 months, I told myself, that’s all I’m doing. We introduced bottles early and I am so thankful we did, as Henry has never had an issue taking a bottle from anyone, and I counted down the months.

And then six months came and went, and I realized I didn’t dread it anymore, didn’t hate it, didn’t love the mechanics of it, but desperately loved those cuddles with my baby boy. 1 year, I told myself, I will definitely be ready by then.

He started self-weaning as soon as we introduced solid foods, and I was fine with that. He still nursed a couple times a day, and I was sad to see those sessions go as he dwindled, but very ready to be done with pumping. By 11 months, he only nursed in the mornings when he woke, and I cherished those sleepy snuggles to start our day. When he turned one I kept intending to stop, kept shrugging it off, kept getting up when he woke and pulling him into the comfy chair. Soon, I said, soon.

On a Saturday morning shortly after he turned one, he nursed. The next morning, he refused. And the morning after that, and the one after that. And so it was that we were done.

It’s not that I am devastated to be done nursing. I was ready, he was ready, and I was intending to do it. I just didn’t imagine it ending like that, didn’t realize that the last time I snuggled him close and breathed in his sweet baby-ness while he nursed would be that day. I had great expectations for our final nursing moment. I was going to soak it in, going to drink in my baby needing me in that unique way for the last time. I was going to cherish it and remember it and store it away in my heart and mind in that precious space that is for cataloguing Henry’s baby moments.

Instead, I nursed half awake, quick to hand him off to James and get back into bed. Because I didn’t know it was the last time.

This will happen a lot, I’m sure. He’s a tiny person, this kid of mine, not a guest actor in the film of my life, playing his role to a T and fulfilling all the moments I have planned. He doesn’t always respond how I imagined, doesn’t react how I hoped. I will spend my whole life having expectations ignored, mourning moments that didn’t happen on my terms. Life with Henry will not go accordingly to my great expectations. That is the tragedy of parenthood, of life lived with other humans.

But there is the joy of those unexpected moments too. Every day he does things I wouldn’t have known to expect, little things that are demanding more and more space in the catalogue of my heart. The way he has learned to climb on everything and then squeals until we notice. How much he loves cheers-ing anything I hold. How he has started raising up his arms to wrap around my neck and place his chubby cheek against mine. How he laughs and hurls his body across my own when I lie on the floor to try to rebuild some abs after carrying him destroyed them.  Lesser moments, greater joy.

This isn’t a lesson we learn once. I’m sure I will spend my whole life being crushed by the ways he thwarts my expectations of a moment or a memory. But along the way I hope I learn even more to love the beauty of things I didn’t even know to expect.

I have always loved printed photos, loved that thrill of anticipation when a packet came in the mail full of blurry photos from the disposable camera I took to summer camp, each almost identical and infinitely precious. My family loves photo albums. Rather than one big album, my mom updated individual ones for each child, so that each of us has a series of books detailing our childhood. We used to pull them out often, paging through former years and reliving moments. The era of every photo equaling a print resulted in us cherishing our images and memories instead of just spreading them around.

I spend a lot of time and energy (and words) reflecting on how to remember life, how to create a physical trail of artifacts and tokens that my kids and grand-kids can treasure. During my grandmother’s last months, we read all the old letters we found that she had written to her own parents, recreating my mother’s entire childhood. We flipped through slides and turned pages in albums, holding family history in our hands.

I want my grand-kids to have more than just a link to a feed of pretty doors and coffee cups. I want more for them than unsmiling faces half obscured by hair and cute shoes on good tile.

So, while I love social media and enjoy digital archiving, I also try to move beyond that, which brings me to a command that will enrich your life: Print your photos.

Tuck them in albums, hang them on your walls, cram then in your bookshelves. Let there be traces of people and places you have loved around your house, and take time to turn the pages in albums and relive happy memories. Don’t let the past fade, and don’t only capture it for masses to like, but rather for an intimate few to love. I love having giant black and white prints of vistas we saw hiking in the Canadian Rockies on our honeymoon in our bedroom, and I love having pictures from our European trip scattered about the living room. I love having scenes of our adventures around the world grace the walls of our home.

I wanted to share some of the ways I print and use photos, as I have done a lot of trial and error over the years and have found some things that work. I would also love to hear what you do to sort, store, and display photos. I know a lot of people use these albums, and I recently saw someone sharing about this digital scrapebook builder that has me very intrigued. Obviously, back up your photos somewhere secure, but I think too many people just leave them safe on a cloud, but never actually where they can see them.

For albums and prints you will frame: Mpix, forever and ever amen. In my experience, Mpix is the best quality printing you will find for a low to moderate budget. I haven’t done canvas prints or anything super fancy with them, but I use them for all prints I plan on framing, and I have printed pretty large scale with them without problems. For albums, I made an album of our first 4 years of marriage last summer and then swore to do it annually. I just got my 2016 album in the mail (really it should be called “Year of Henry”) and it is stunning. I always get the premium panoramic books. They have thick, lay-flat pages, and have hands-down the best  layouts for people who want to customize them and add lots of photos. Yes, you could be trendy and pay lots more for these albums everyone loves, but you will be forced into a minimal aesthetic and can only have very limited pictures per page. That’s great, but I needed to share approximately a million pictures of Henry in bear suits, so that wasn’t an option. There are always Mpix sales, so I design an album, put it in my cart, then just wait till a 30% off coupon shows up and order.  Note: I used to totally design all my pages in Mpix, and it is possible and you can have a million photos. But then I got lazy, and now I actually use a collage making script I run in Photoshop to prepare the collage and then upload it as one photo. This is faster for me, but you could totally still do it in the Mpix interface and achieve the same result, as all photo boxes can be dragged and sized to manually create a collage. Just wanted to add that note in case you went to make a spread like the one below and didn’t see it as an option. Of course, if you have Photoshop and make collages often, the script is totally worth purchasing!For fun prints to share outside of frames: Social Print Studios. I love their photo strip prints, and I also ordered some of their postcard prints to give to grandparents, because they look just a little bit snazzier stuck on a fridge or standing up beside a computer. They have all sorts of fun photo gifts too that I haven’t tried.

For keeping your mom satisfied with pictures of your baby: Postal Pics. My mom is always wanting new pictures of Henry to keep in her purse and thrust on people she meets. She doesn’t need crazy high quality prints, just frequent photo updates that aren’t on her phone. I downloaded this app and periodically just have some new pictures shipped to the grandparents. 

Things to help you actually print your photos:

1. If you have photos professionally done and if it is financially possible, book someone who includes prints as part of the cost. Otherwise you will have just another CD to toss in the back of a drawer. If not, set yourself a date whereby you MUST choose and print some.
2. Organize your photos. When you upload them, edit keepers and delete duplicates/bad ones immediately and save them in a uniform format. I have a folder for each season, saving any new pictures as Summer2017_62 etc.
3. Make printing/album-making/scrapbooking a routine ritual. My brother has given my mom a photo album of all our photos on her birthday the past couple years, and as I mentioned above, my goal is making an album for each year. It has taken me till June to get last year’s album up, but it happened.
4. Streamline scrapbooking. The beauty of digital stuff is you can include photos or scans of documents that are important. On the last page of our annual albums for instance, we include a digital copy of the front and back of our Christmas card, as it sums up the year.
5. Look at your photos. Get those albums off the shelf and look through them, reliving memories and retelling stories. Make reflection a part of your family culture, not just a digital impulse.
6. Actually take photos all year. I wrote here about what camera I use, how I edit, and how I shoot, in  case you want more tips on actually taking photos.

How do you print and use photos?

Making : Our 2016 photo album, and to have it finished before the end of 2017 feels like quite the accomplishment.
Cooking : BLT’s…. which maybe doesn’t count, and actually James always makes those, so it definitely doesn’t count.
Drinking : Coffee hot, coffee cold, coffee in the pot three days old (not really… though I’m maybe not above it if I got desperate.)
Reading: Mark Helprin’s Freddy and Fredericka because my friend Anna promised it was good, but so far it has had everything that annoys me about Helprin’s writing (obnoxiously smug hypermasculine men, silly women, lengthy and maybe pointless digressions, too long and elaborate sentences), so I’m losing faith.
Wanting: For June to last twice as long, because I am already panicked that summer will go too fast.
Looking: For baby-friendly restaurants and activities in some of our travel destinations this summer.
Playing: “Let the Baby Tackle The Mommy and Put Solo Cups on Her Face”- a game at which Henry excels.
Wasting: At least half of every bag of Goldfish, thanks to our chubby ginger gremlin and his enthusiasm for scattering food.
Sewing: As always- no. But, since Henry’s goofy crawl has ripped out the left knee in almost every pair of pants, I should really get on that.
Wishing: That there wouldn’t be a new disaster in the news daily. That our world would break just a little less each day instead of more. That there wouldn’t be so many attacks and shootings and disasters that we all get almost numb to it.
Enjoying: Long days and more flexible nap and bedtime schedules that let us enjoy them.
Waiting: For my download of Hillbilly Elegy to be ready through Overdrive. I am very skeptical that it will be better than this book of a similar nature that is PERFECT IN EVERY WAY GO READ IT NOW, but I decided I should withhold judgement until I read listened to it.
Liking: How the house feels so still the two days a week that Henry is with a babysitter. How it feels so complete when he has returned his noise to it. How much I can get done on my dissertation while he’s gone. How that concentrated work time means I can really focus on doing things with him the other days.
Wondering: When Henry will start walking, and feeling both excited for that day and sad that it means the end of his total babyness.
Loving: Summer in this city with a baby… blaming fun on your kid really opens up amazing adventures.
Hoping: That I come out of this summer of splash pads and pools with a tan.
Marveling: At how anyone could think that having kids isn’t fun, because I have never laughed so much on such a regular basis.
Needing: To buy my chubby-footed baby some shoes, but for the love of me, I do not understand toddler shoe sizing. Like, what are these numbers and what do they means???
Wearing: This shirt on repeat (because yes, I have it in three colors, and yes, it makes me feel fancy at the park), and I just snagged these shorts, because they are supposedly stain proof. (Henry: “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.”)
Following: The ladies of this podcast, because even though I started it as a judgy “that is so never how I would raise my kids” listen… I really appreciate their hearts and words and have found myself rethinking so many parenting decisions I made before having kids.
Noticing: How differently Henry has changed my perspective on so many things.
Knowing: That this is only the very beginning of the unraveling of so many expectations and ideas that change when confronted with reality .
Thinking: That that is how it should be, our children undoing us and requiring humility, openness, and new growth.
Feeling: Uncertain of so very many things, but deeply happy for who my people are and the life we are building.

Somehow it is only Thursday, but as I am thoroughly convinced that it should be Friday, I’m tossing up a bunch of links for your weekend reading. James had a crazy work week, Henry got a nasty cold on top of 4 straight days of a low-grade fever from his one-year vaccines, and I have somehow had to do a million little things that take lots of time but feel frustratingly unproductive. So. Not our most relaxing week. Still, it has been punctuated with way more snuggles than my usually active boy allows, so I don’t totally mind. I’m sure you have heard that avocado toast is the reason young people aren’t buying homes, but apparently the culprit is also hip coffee shops with milk crate seats.

I’ve been on the hunt for a new place to get cute, good quality, inexpensive toddler clothes, and PEOPLE: This is it.

Most frequently misspelled words for each state. Of course, if the Internet was a state, its most misspelled word would be “you’re” which is NOT THE SAME THING AS “YOUR.” I  keep track of people on Instagram who I have never seen use the correct one… which maybe just means the whole language is changing?

These are the words that I need to hear on a regular basis: “Church is not something we do—it’s who we are to each other and to a watching world that doesn’t need one more Christian pretending that everything is fine.”

I know I’m late to the game, but POLDARK. So obsessed. Nothing I love as much as angsty British drama interspersed with panoramas of horseback rides along the coast of Cornwall. In fact, sometimes I just imagine trips to Cornwall and cruise Airbnb’s (like this one) because if there is one thing I love, it is researching trips that I’m not actually taking.

At the encouragement of my constantly-white-clothing-wearing friend Christine, I took the plunge and got these white jeans (which are on sale every 2 minutes because LOFT), that I shared here. They are pretty amazing, not completely see-through, perfectly stretchy, and forgiving for us wide-hipped ladies.

My cousin visited recently and she is a neurologist, so of course I made her analyze everything Henry does to tell me if his brain is developing correctly. She told me that quite possibly the best thing I can do is to not protect him too much, and to eat a little dirt in hopes that it might prevent against later developing autoimmune diseases. (Kind of like the underground worm selling network .)

These two articles popped up back to back in my newsfeed the other day, and I really appreciated reading two entirely different articles that tied back to women keeping house: Making marriages tidy and why you shouldn’t have to ask.

I’m kind of in a cooking rut, but this looks like the perfect easy and simple dish to mix up my rotation.

Everyone is wearing tassels and usually I am not a fan. I am not one for froo-froo jewelry, beaded things, and too many pastels. But, a friend was wearing these the other day and I snagged some with a giftcard. The perfect “neutral” tassel option!

A friend shared this article that his wife wrote on their journey with infertility, and I cried reading it, thinking of all the people we know who have walked this hard road. Children are a gift, and the words and pictures helped me visualize and better understand the sensations of being passed over to receive them.

Finally, I was so thrilled when Megan of The Fresh Exchange asked me to be her May contributor, and if you missed it, hop on over here to read some thoughts on motherhood and see pictures of a day when my hair looked way better than it usually does. Happy weekend!

The very best season is upon us.

I love summer more and more every year, and having Henry has only made that love increase tenfold. Since the key to sanity with an active baby in a tiny apartment is being outside as much as possible, summer is our jam. Summer gives me so much more time to explore this city with Henry. The last month of the semester was rough, with lots of deadlines to meet, applications to complete, projects to finish, grading to do, etc. As always happens, I got so stressed that I stopped sleeping and we had a couple really rough weeks around our house where I was surviving, but far from thriving.

But then summer came.

Last Friday night we headed to Navy Yard to enjoy our first splash pad. I must admit, splash pad fun was one of the things I was so excited about doing with a kid from the first moment I found out I was pregnant. Henry was still at the loaf-of-bread stage last summer, but this summer he is all in. He was skeptical of the fountains at first, but quickly took to trying to catch as much water in his mouth as possible. Plus, it meant that he and I could play while James scored an outdoor table and ordered at one of the great restaurants lining the park, only to have us join after the food arrived. The result was Henry making it through an evening dining-out experience, something that isn’t always his strong suit.

It is easy to think of summer as lasting forever in these early June weeks. But inevitably, August rolls around and I panic that I haven’t done everything I wanted to do. Here are some goals for this summer, both things that need to get done, and experiences I want to enjoy in this city:

Summer goals:

Finally make an album from Henry’s first year. Last summer I used those months of a newborn sleeping on my lap to make albums from 2012-2015, and I am determined to get the 2016 album done before the end of the summer.

Go through everything and donate as much stuff as possible. Doing our taxes motivated me to be better about getting receipts for donations. I have a list of all the Zones of Clutter (bathroom shelves, bedroom dresser, kitchen gadget box, etc) that I want to sort through and purge, and I am trying to hit one zone a week.

Make serious dissertation progress. It can’t be all splash-pads and fun. We have childcare through the end of June, and I have some major goals I need to finish by then, as well as research goals for July and August. In June, Henry is with his babysitter all day Tuesday and Thursday, which means 2 nine hour days where I do nothing but work, and three days where I can feel free to focus on him and other little projects.

Run. Since the half-marathon I ran at 6 months post-partum, I have run verrryyyyyy little and I want that to change. DC summers are terrible running weather, but I’ve been going at least twice a week lately and it feels better than nothing.

Develop a better morning routine. Everyone seems to agree that productive people get up early, especially people with kids. Ummm…..oops. I never get up before Henry unless I absolutely have to, and then it is the very minimum amount required to get ready. But I really miss starting my days with some tranquil time, so I am working on getting up just a tad before him.

Read something. I read so much for work, but very rarely for pleasure. Gone are the days of my amazing summer reading lists. I do a pretty good job with audiobooks, but I want to read some physical ones too. My friend Liz dragged me to the library during her final days of maternity leave and now, after 6 years of living in DC, I have a library card. And I plan to use it… and hopefully for more than getting audiobooks on this app. So tell me- what are you reading? And I’m talking summer reading here- nothing too sophisticated.

Some DC Summer Goals:

Visit the XYZT Exhibit at Artechouse. Now that the Infinity Mirror exhibit has moved on, this is the new museum experience everyone is talking about. It’s not free, and it looks like they may not allow little kids, but I’m still intrigued.

Check out “Hive” at the National Building Museum.  There are free early-open times for each DC Ward, and I can’t wait to go. Remember the beach exhibit?

Splash pads: I plan on structuring many a summer day around trekking to some of the DC splash-pads, including regular visits to Yards Park (shown above)and a couple outings to the Georgetown Waterfront and the fountains at City Center. I met a friend at the Mosaic District out in VA, and they had rudely not turned on their fountains yet… but I want to go back!

Visits to our favorite ice cream shops. Summer is for ice-cream, and a long walk to some of these pushing a stroller totally negates the caloric splurge, right?

Hit as many coffee shops as possible. I love coffee shops, and often Henry and I will walk almost an hour to try a new one. He loves getting out and I love treat-oriented walking goals. Nothing sounds better than loading up snacks and swim gear and spending the day hitting splash pads and coffee shops.

What are your summer goals? Book recommendations? Any great DC things I need to add to my list?

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We have been heading south to Charlottesville a couple times a year almost the entire time I have lived in DC. My older brother is working on a PhD at UVA. It is a great getaway from DC that has excellent food, the latter being my main goal in all travel. When Zach started dating his now-wife, we had double reasons to visit, because we absolutely adore Liz.  They are moving to Sweden in September, ending a magical 5 year period where both of my brothers lived within close proximity – one three blocks away, and the other less than three hours. Our summers are all busy with travel, so we decided we needed one last visit to Charlottesville before they left so we could…EAT AT BRAZOS TACOS. I mean see them. I mean both. I don’t have a picture of our actual tacos, as they were consumed in haste so we could get back in the car and get that cool dude to fall asleep before he melted down, but trust me: they are the best. We get them every time we come and they never get old, especially the breakfast tacos.We also spent a couple hours at Veritas Vineyard, because vineyards are perfect places for loud and drooly people who struggle with personal boundaries and like to roll in the grass. Also for toddlers. Henry just crawled around in the grass chasing his toy ball and wreaking havoc and no one cared. Y’all, this is the inaugural wearing of my very first pair of white jeans and I was absolutely terrified the entire time about getting stuff on them. Teach me your ways, oh white jean wearers. Uncle Zach spent a lot of time kicking the ball, letting Henry chase it, and kicking it away at the very last second. Which Henry thought was THE BEST THING EVER. This double swing. Whhhhyyyyyyyy is there not one in every park? We will miss those two so much next year! Also the tacos. But mostly them!

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Our final poster in this look at working motherhood is one of my oldest friends. Susannah and I have been friends since elementary school, and I couldn’t have been happier when we both ended up moving from Kentucky to DC in the same summer. I have loved getting to watch her welcome two little girls into their family over the past couple years, and I have cheered her on as she and her husband walk the long road to adoption. They are in the final stages of bringing a little boy home from El Salvador, and she and I have candidly talked over the years about the need to hold loosely to any work-life balance, because needs and desires change as families change.

Hi! I’m Susannah…follower of Jesus, wife to Josue, mom to two little firecrackers, Elise (3.5) and Lydia (1.5), and owner of Authentic Portrait.

I started my business 8 years ago, straight out of college while engaged to my soon-to-be husband. By the time we had our first child just over 4 years later, I had a dreamy photography studio and had no plans of staying home full-time. In fact, I’m not even sure my husband and I ever even had a conversation about if I would because we both knew that I would continue working. Since my first was born I have waxed and waned in how much I work, and come to a pretty happy 20-26 hours a week outside of the home (not counting the many late nights at home :D), and for this season of life it feels right. The ability to be with my girls half of the week, playing in the yard, taking pool trips, finger-painting one work of art after another, creating meals we enjoy, and even trying to keep some semblance of order in our home is really amazing and I don’t take it for granted.I remember soon after I had Elise clients and friends would ask me how everything was going with a baby and a business and I would often respond that it was good, and that I was just trying to figure out the right family / work balance. One sweet client, who was also a working mom, chuckled and told me I just might spend the rest of my life looking for that balance because it is so hard to find, and is ever-changing. And man, was she right. My husband and I have had many a late night conversation asking sincerely how we’re doing at this balance thing. Are we working too much? Not enough? Missing important things in our parenting? How can we be better? Do we need to make some changes? The ability to re-visit our “norm”, have a spouse’s loving perspective and always be willing to keep our priorities in line is so important to us.

Two words come back to me when I think about life as a business owner and mom.

ENOUGH

It can be exhausting and overwhelming to try to meet so many needs. To grocery, plan meals, do preschool drop off, wash the clothes, unload the dishwasher, sweep up the cheerio dust, pick up the craft supplies, kiss the booboos…and in another world to respond quickly to clients, finish another blog post, complete an order, post on Instagram, photograph a session, design an album, keep up with the marketing plan etc etc. So often I look at a week ahead and wonder how on earth it can come together. If I’ll have enough…or be enough. And the answer is a resounding no. Experience has taught me that I can’t possibly do it on my own, and when I try it is disastrous. What a relief it has been to allow myself to recognize and remember that truth. I lean hard on Jesus who promises that HE is enough, and that his strength is made perfect in my weakness. And I lean in to my sweet husband who truly partners with me in life, family and even business, making this all possible.

PRESENT.

I’ve also learned how important it is to be present, wherever I am. When Elise was young, I’d put her in the baby K’tan and hammer out e-mails and blog posts, but as she grew, it didn’t take long for me to realize that it wasn’t fair…to her or to my work to try to work while with her, so I made the decision be fully present. For me that means I try really hard not to work when I’m with my girls. In the past I’ve used nap time as work time, squeezing every possible minute out of it and refusing to even get up for lunch or a potty break at times (eek)! Now that I have more consistent hours & days that I’m in the studio for work, nap time is more flexible. Sometimes it still is business work and other times it is work around the house. And on the work side, being present means I don’t take my kids to the studio, even if I don’t have any meetings or shoots scheduled. This has saved me immense frustration, and allowed me to be much more fruitful in my time both with my family and in my work.I love what I do, and I really do love working outside of the home…for me I really believe it makes me be a better mom (this confirmed by my husband :). Most days (not going to lie and say every day), I am genuinely excited about the day to come…whether at home with my girls or at the studio with my clients. The dress code is comically different…heels, makeup, a polished outfit for one, yoga pants, oversized tank top and sunglasses over naked eyes for another.

So for now you’ll find me coffee drinking, photo taking, park playing, heart praying and life dreaming as we navigate this whole parenting thing.*The first photo is Susannah’s studio partner Amanda, and the second and third photos are by Katie Mitchell.

 I met Fran when she lived with some of my best friends during college. I’ve loved following her parenting adventures over the past couple years, as she hits the perfect balance between hysterical and heartfelt. If you follow Fran on Instagram or read her blog, you know that she talks about parenting, literature, and life with a refreshing wit and candid honesty. I was so happy that she agreed to share today in one of our final posts about working motherhood about the ways that marriage and children can force you to make big career changes. I was raised by an amazing single mother. She was everything to me. She also had to be everything: mother, father, guardian, leader, authority, and friend. In my own stumbling through motherhood for only three years so far I have to continually remind myself that I’m not meant to be everything and also – how did she do this alone? Motherhood is the deepest of joys and the greatest of challenges.

I’ve never clamored to hold babies, and I am not overtly maternal. I’ve always wanted children, but being a mother has never been my only dream. In some ways, that has been helpful to me – but on the flip side – on long days of mothering, it is a battle for my mind to remember I am neither my circumstances nor my job. 

Before children, I was working as a flight attendant when I met my husband. It was my dream job, it was my coming-of-age story. It was all we had known as we dated, planned a wedding, and became newlyweds. But I knew with each passing month as we built a foundation for our marriage that it didn’t align with the vision we had for the family we hoped to have one day. It was a big and scary (and sad) decision for me initially, but I said goodbye and haven’t looked back.

So we started a new chapter of permanent life on the ground. I got a new job as a digital media manager with a business I loved, and we were excited for what the Lord had in store for us. Very shortly after, I found out I was pregnant on our first anniversary. 

During my pregnancy, when we discussed what life would look like once we had our baby, the decision was an easy one for us. It made sense for me to be home – my husband made more money, and we didn’t feel it necessary to pay for daycare when I could be with our daughter instead. Very fortunately, the job I left was one that I was able to do from home. We proceeded confidently and anxiously awaited the tiny human’s arrival.

We had a little girl at the end of a beautiful Spring. She made me maternal, she made me fiercely protective, and she changed my mind forever about babies as I now have absolutely no chill around them. Give me all the babies. (This obsession with babies has only deepened since becoming the parent of a full-blown toddler…but that is an entirely different post 😉 )

When my husband went back to work, our daughter was three weeks old. I laid out a variety of snacks and beverages on our coffee table and we laid together on our couch, sleeping in between episodes of Scandal and Gossip Girl. (I have sophisticated taste in television programs). It was one of my favorite summers of my life. I got to do the same thing two years later as we welcomed our son and we enjoyed my husband’s generous paternity leave and tried to quickly adjust to life with two kids.

Our seasons of life right now are widely dictated by our children, and that’s both okay and to be expected. I have loved the time when I am home with them, nursing round the clock and doing puzzles and pretending I am not the one eating all the goldfish crackers. I also get so excited for the times when work takes me out of the home. I feel vibrant and love being around other adults and being challenged creatively. My husband encourages me in this as he also sees how life-giving it is for me. 

I’ve heard so frequently from older women in my life that they see it is particularly challenging to be a mother in this age of information. We have unlimited access to information about everything. Millions of different car seats and strollers. To vaccinate or not. To stay home or to keep working. How they should be carried, how they should be sleeping. It’s exhausting, and I have to remember that everything is not in my control. I am not going to do everything well. Whenever I hear things about “balance,” all I can think is that it should really just be “there’s a mess somewhere.” One day you’re killing it as a mom and behind in your workload. One day your inbox is empty but the house is a mess and your meal-planning extends only to Wendy’s.

We do best to hold all of our plans, rhythms, and dreams loosely. We get the baby on a schedule, and we’re a well-oiled machine for a couple of weeks before there are new teeth poking through tender gums and everyone is tired again. 

Parenthood is hard, and we don’t know what we’re doing, and we’re all trying to make the best decisions we can. It’s a wild ride and I’m glad it takes a village. The village is varied and full of different life circumstances, and we could all use some cheering on as we nurture the souls of the next generation to know they are deeply loved and capable of great things.

“This job has been given to me to do. Therefore, it is a gift. Therefore, it is a privilege. Therefore it is an offering I may make to God. Therefore it is to be done gladly if it is done for Him. Here, not somewhere else, I may learn God’s way. In this job, not in some other. God looks for faithfulness.” – Elisabeth Elliot

I’m not sure how, but Henry turned one this week.

One.

As in, an entire year has been spent with this amazing boy under our roof, destroying our stuff, wreaking havoc on our sleep, and making us laugh and cry. It has been the best year. Even if it has included so many hard, bad, or just plain miserable moments, it has also included some of the best and sweetest moments, ones I couldn’t have even imagined. The way he laughs uproariously when I peek around the counter as he eats in his high chair. The smell of his head when he burrows against me during post-nap snuggles. The feel of his tiny hands on the back of my legs as he tries to stand up and get my attention.

We celebrated his birthday last weekend, and I will be honest – quite a few things went wrong in preparing for his party. I had visions of a classy and composed park party, with a delicious feast, miniature and perfect smash cake for him to destroy as he wore a cute party crown, and a hoop to make 20 feet long bubbles and wow Henry and his tiny friends. Bunting in the trees, big balloons, wicker baskets of blankets for our friends to spread in the grass, framed pictures of different months scattered about.Y’ALL. I was delusional. Here is how the planning went:

Go to Costco and get cake and bags of chips the size of sleeping bags. Remember you got pretty napkins at Ikea a couple weeks ago.  Make a Chat book with pics of Henry at the last minute and toss it on a table. Text family and neighbors to see if anyone has a card table and some chairs. Beg a friend to make a sign. Schlep stuff to park, including bunting you pulled off Henry’s wall.Oh and that bubble hoop? Total failure. True, I didn’t exactly follow the instructions on making the bubble mixture…. but still. Not that it mattered, since the kids (and adults) all loved the wands I grabbed at the check-out line at Aldi a couple weeks ago.And let’s talk about the smash cake. I tried to make one the night before the party, but something went horribly awry in the icing process and the whole thing crumbled into a sight akin to the poop emoji. So instead of offering it to Henry, James and I just ate the whole thing standing in the middle of the kitchen late at night. That’s us, winning at parenting since mid 2016.

But as you can see, Henry loved his party anyways. Eventually, through sacrificial eating on my own part, we convinced him that the cake was not actually an affront to his sensibilities, but something delicious to be consumed. And then he made us proud. If the point of a party is pinterest perfection – we failed. But it isn’t. It’s a celebration of one year with this kid and the mess of a job that we do parenting that still somehow has him thriving.  It’s a way to gather with the village who has come around us as we figured out how to do this family thing and relish the fact that we are doing it, imperfectly, but wholeheartedly.

Nothing could have prepared me for the sheer joy of being this kid’s mom.  On the days where I am emphatically not enjoying motherhood (and those happen) I still do not have the slightest wish to be doing anything else. The past year has been a long introduction to the amazing sidekick, the loyal friend, and the devoted comforter that I never could have imagined wanting. I’ve spent a year watching Henry’s personality develop. He’s an extrovert, that ginger baby of mine, eager to be in the midst of activity and easy to laugh. He loves noise and crowds, has very little fear of strangers, and tends to be a tad overly aggressive in his affections. He is enamored with putting objects on his head and then chortling when they fall behind his back and loves to race pot lids down the hall. He is inquisitive and destructive, constantly testing any limit or boundary. He loves nothing more than when he can sit in between both his parents. He likes to clap to music, prefers broccoli and scrambled eggs over all else, and has ripped the left knee out of all his pants because of his funny stanky leg crawl. He is intense in his emotions and predictable in his patterns.

He is ours, and that is everything.

Happy birthday Henry Wilberforce. We love you with everything we are.

PS: I didn’t write a full birth story, but here are some highlights, including the absence of contractions until after 7cm, and the total glory of that sweet sweet epidural.