a normal day

On October 18th, my daughter was born and I became the mother of three children. Hundreds of miles away, on the same day, another baby girl was born and another woman added the third child to her family. We were complete strangers at that time, but our love of photography and family brought us together. We started to have a conversation about motherhood with images, because we tell stories with our cameras. Since some tales are so similar, and some are not, we decided to collaborate and share a photo a week from a normal day as a mother to three.

“Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.”         – Mary Jean Irion

AND.HR.5.19.16copy

 i should probably feel a higher level of concern for your well-being since you are younger than your brother and sister.  they could take advantage of you and make you feel inferior because of your age and size.  but, you have shown me time and again that i mustn’t worry about you.  you can hold your own.  in fact, today as i watched you laughing maniacally as you held the shower door shut while your big sister bathed in the tub and begged you to leave the door open, i realized that i should probably be focusing my energy on making sure the older two aren’t being pushed around by you.

photo by Heather Robinson     blog | Facebook

1O1A0884resize
After the bath, before bed, I called you all in to my room to take in some beautiful evening light. My big girls’ awareness to my art is very present now. They want to collaborate, or at least cooperate much of the time. They want to see the final images and know what I’ve shared and how many people have “liked” the image. But when they ask me not to photograph or to leave my cameras home, I listen. We’ve come this far from listening to each other.

photo by Olivia Gatti     website Facebook