a normal day
Thursday, December 8, 2016
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
we went to the christmas tree farm today. when we got there, we were told that they were out of fir trees already due to a shortage this year after the forest fires in the mountains. we decided to hang out there anyway. you all played in the bounce house and on the swing set there. then i asked you to sit among the baby trees so i could take a photo of you. i assured you that there would be warm homemade donuts in it for you. i didn’t dare ask you to smile at me though. just having you look in my direction was more than i ever expected. after a couple of quick snaps, we grabbed some donuts from the shop there and got into the warm car and headed down the road to get a tree from a roadside lot. the baby slept on the way. as we walked around the tree lot, it began to rain. through our shivers, we were happy. excited about winter. about christmas. it felt good to feel excitement for a change. today didn’t turn out as planned. but sometimes the unexpected can be even sweeter than the expected.
photo by Heather Robinson blog | Facebook
Two out of three sharing a tub is about the best I’m going to get these days. I knew it was coming, almost a year ago, I called it. And thankfully, it doesn’t make me sad. In fact, it makes perfect sense knowing her and then knowing you two. I respect that she’s past this and I rejoice that you two aren’t. I’ll be sad when no one needs my help in the tub. Or maybe not. I can’t see that far into the future. Who knows? Maybe I’ll throw a huge party when I no longer need to be the life guard, the hair detangler, and the tub-toy bleacher.
photo by Olivia Gatti website | Facebook
