A photo journal comprised of my thoughts on motherhood and other life happenings, as well as some of professional work as a photographer. Southern California is home.
A portrait of my husband, once a week, every week, in 2013.
My husband. Aka the man who will do a belly flop for the sake of your portrait series. I love the man, I do.
As for last week, I loved both the photo and editing of Abigail’s photo. I’m obviously drawn to the father son moment as well. I mean his little hands on his Papa’s back, get out… right? So sweet.
Traveling with kids is never like traveling, well, without kids. I remember our first trip with Hooper to Hawaii. He was just a few months and we left scratching our heads wondering if it was worth it but knowing, deep down, that it was not. I’m frugal in the sense that I hate to admit something that I spent money on was not enjoyable, but that trip to Hawaii simply felt like a different set of four walls. And the walls felt cold. Like concrete. I’m hinting that it felt like prison, but allow me to be blunt for a moment and actually say it felt like prison. It felt like prison.
I digress.
Since then, we’ve gotten better at traveling. We’re more experienced, we have more confidence, and we have a better perspective. The perspective part is invaluable. While we have yet to take the plunge and do a big trip, we have been doing a lot of small ones.
Willy’s still working out in Palm Springs every now and again, so we join him when we can. We brought Sarah along this time and voted her least valuable player after a night spent listening to her shake and lick and howl only to put her out on the patio to find her ripping apart the outdoor furniture. That was a hoot. But, it’s all about perspective people; so I won’t spend the whole time telling you about how Hooper would not leave his hands off Van or how the neighbors must have thought we were murdering our son when in actuality all we were doing was trying to give him a shower he was clearly not on board with because there was no bathtub. I won’t complain about the nuisances because the memory of the trip is a good one, all in all.
And that’s the thing about perspective. It’s easy to peek in on someone’s life, scroll through their photos, and think they don’t have the same day to day struggles that you do. I promise, everyone (especially those with young kids) has shitty days… or shitty parts of their day. When you travel with little ones, you have to expect this. Attitude is everything. The trip was a success, for me, because I managed to get some sun, I ate greasy food, and I didn’t kill my kids, my husband, or our dog.
And yes, I too am dying over that last photo. Maybe he’s finally starting to catch on to when I tell him to keep the peace. Part 2, coming your way tomorrow, I hope.
Today we have an awesome giveaway from the lovely ladies over at Urban Baby Bonnets, aka UB2. I love working with other mamas, and the ladies behind UB2 are as sweet as they come. I love that they are passionate about their product and I love that their products are all handmade.
I wish my boys would wear hats. We live in Southern California and you better believe we spend much of our summers at the beach. I’m that mom that’s combing sunscreen through her kids’ hair to keep their little noggins from getting burnt. We own one ridiculous tiger sun visor that Hooper agrees to keeping on his head. Well, some of the time at least.
When the kind ladies over at Urban Baby Bonnets offered to send me a bonnet to review, I kindly declined. Truthfully, I didn’t want the responsibility of making it work for the sake of this post. I knew that bonnet would be thrown off their little hot heads in no time. But I reconsidered when I discovered they have snaps. It’s almost as if these bonnets were designed by moms. Oh wait, they are.
You can read more about the company and the product here.
So the initial response looked like this:
Then he discovered it was snapped on:
And then a few minutes passed and this toddler forgot about that bonnet:
The bonnets come in a wide range of sizes, but I found that the medium (12-24 months) fit both of my boys well despite the nearly two year age gap. That’s always a win in my book.
The bonnets are reversible, have multiple snaps to allow for proper fitting, and have a large brim to shade the whole face from the sun. The bonnets also work well with breastfeeding and car seats/strollers. There’s loads of fabrics to chose from (I love this one, this one, and this one).
In fact, the bloomers are my favorite. I mean, seriously? Too cute.
UB2 is offering one lucky winner a $36 credit to their store. This giveaway is open internationally and there are numerous ways to enter. Please leave a separate comment for each entry to increase your chances of winning. The winner will be chosen via random.org and announced here in two weeks.
-Visit Urban Baby Bonnets and tell me what you would purchase with the $36 credit.
Remember to leave a separate comment for each entry. Best of luck and thank you for supporting my sponsors. Remember to check back here in two weeks to see if you won. Winner will also be contacted via email, so make sure your email address is valid.
Interested in making a purchase? Use code MAYFLOWER to receive free US shipping on all orders over $87 at checkout.
This is my beautiful best friend. Ten things off the top of my head:
1. We went to high school together but were not friends. Then we roomed together in college and became inseparable.
2. We have babies that are seven days apart.
3. We’ve traveled to Singapore, Indonesia, Guatemala, Mexico, Thailand, India, Malta, Egypt, Morocco, and Belize together. We also drove from California to Louisiana and back. We ate a lot of eggs, which we kept unrefrigerated in the back of the car. We returned early when my nails started mysteriously falling off. Like seriously falling off. It was not related to the the unrefrigerated eggs.
4. We used to go to a hole in the wall Indian restaurant on a regular basis to drink tea. The man that worked there took a liking to us and would have our tea ready once he saw us getting out of the car. We also used to frequent dive bars throughout the valley. One bar offered to “hire” us to hang out there to draw men in. We declined. It was weird.
5. We burned a tire on the beach in Mexico because we were freezing. It made for a big, warm flame but the smell was horrid and I have a feeling it was not good for the environment.
6. Dan Eldon was, at one time, our hero. He’s still pretty up there in my book.
7. There was a period of time I wasn’t dating anyone and Janet I spent so much time together that my dad thought we might be lesbians. He’ll say this was a joke if you ask him about it today, but my mom will confirm that, indeed, he was serious. It’s good to know he loved me all the same.
8. There was a time that we lived together, worked together at a coffee shop, and took the same classes together. And yet the only fight we’ve ever had was on a 24 hour bus ride in India. I couldn’t even tell you what it was about.
9. We went shopping in a huge market in Singapore separately and came out donning the same exact bracelet.
10. And, oh ya, she’s the designer behind this blog. She’s also helping me with something new I have in the works. You can check out a small portion of her work here. She has a blog as well, but despite my persistence, it’s private. I consider myself in the “in” crowd.
Let these words sit and marinate, I’ll come back to them: “And then there was me. The Mother. The Artist. The little girl who filled notebooks with trees and rivers and thickets rich with treasure. I knew, deep in my deepest place of Knowing, that the only place my soul would ever feel secure, free from danger or threat, was exploring, with abandon, the wild and beautiful unknown”.
I confessed to a friend the other day that despite having done all I have in life, I’m still not sure I did enough prior to settling into motherhood. And the list of what I have done is long and diverse. I’ve rode elephants in Thailand and camels in Egypt, seen the Taj Mahal, spent a summer in France as an au pair for a family I still visit in London, I’ve camped on several different beaches in Mexico, got engaged in the Dominican Republic, seen the pyramids and King Tut’s tomb, drank mint tea in Casablanca, and even made my way to Cuba which is technically illegal.
I read this article that outlined three reasons to travel while you’re young. And I realized two things: I’m no longer young and, as aforementioned, I’m not sure I traveled enough while I was young.
When you’re young, you don’t quite grasp the freedom in doing what you want. You think of yourself as an individual entity and it’s hard to foresee a time in the future that your life is no longer your own. A time that, despite not being a prisoner, is nonetheless no longer about you and how you want to spend your day.
Sometimes I ask Willy if he’d be willing to pack up and travel around in an RV for a year. He doesn’t take me entirely seriously and I can’t say I’m entirely serious either, but it’s important (to me) to plant that seed and let it sit in the event that one day I may grow some hairy nuts and chose to water that seed. I don’t want to appear to come out of left field, so I plant seeds. A little virtual garden of dreams.
I do this because I’m still attached to my memories of traveling from my youth. I still feel their impact. I still feel their importance. I still feel the fire that these experiences ignited in my soul. I recognize how traveling changed me. Molded me. Defined me. And I want, so bad, to raise my youngins with the same “go, see, do” mentality.
The words above were written byMichelle Gardella as a feature on Artifact Uprising. Her story left me with a lump in my throat. Sometimes this life I live feels so right; I love my family deeply, with my whole heart. We have a home that’s small but big enough for us. We have successful careers in that we watch the dollars we spend, but not the pennies. And yet, at times, I feel like I am playing a role; like I’m acting out the American dream- the house, the kids, the dog, the careers- but my soul knows that it’s not entirely me. It’s part of me, but not all of me. The other part of me knows that the only way to live is wild and free; with dirt under my nails and ever changing scenery. I think we all long for some of this; I long for it so deeply that I can only assume it’s human nature.
It’s the practical versus emotional debate and it’s a heavy one. My practical side tells me I’m doing fantastic; it tells me my ducks are pretty well lined up, it tells me to keep planning and putting away for the future, it reminds me to stay frugal and yells at me to stop thinking so much when I’m driving on those long stretches of road with the windows down and the music up and the kids peacefully gazing out the window. My emotional side tells me that fire is still ignited for a reason; it tells me that ducks belong in a pond or the sky, not in a line; it tells me that there are many ways to live our lives, and it begs me to redefine the word “success”.
THIS is who I am. I feel like every post needs this post as a preface so I can be fully understood. Michelle’s words really got under my skin like an annoying bug bite that I’m constantly feeling the urge to itch.
I go on with the norm from day to day because the norm is my life right now. I have a family to care for and consider. And the ambiguity in how an alternative life would workout keeps that fire at just a flicker, a small flame that bends and twists with the wind but never fully goes out.
Dear Hooper & Van, never stay stagnant. Even while you’re sitting in one place, may your soul be jumping.
Side note: The photo above was taken in Baja, Mexico in 2006. I was with Janet and we rang in the new year at a hole in the wall bar filled with locals. It was a few weeks after my first date with Willy and I remember missing him. Our tent was just out of frame, right there on the sandy beach.
A portrait of my husband, once a week, every week, in 2013.
We spent part of this last week in Arizona, visiting family. Willy was born and raised there, though he chooses only to associate himself with California these days. California will do that to you, I suppose. In any event, we met the bright blue eyed little girl that has so graciously given us the title of Aunt and Uncle, and we couldn’t be more proud. I’ll share some bits + pieces from our trip next week. I’m also working on a new family video.
I loved this capture from Grow Till Tall from last week, especially the one with her little nose pushed up against the window. So cute.
