BOSTON CHILDREN'S PHOTOGRAPHER, BOSTON FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER, BOSTON NEWBORN PHOTOGRAPHER

Last Friday into this Monday, I decided to get my head back into the game.  I have this extended work hangover that stretches well into January.  I want to work.  I still owe things to people.  I want to get my act in gear.  But I can’t.  I am too fried.  I do things like attempt to paint an entire beadboard ceiling another color.  I cut out early for wine.  Hell, I even work out.  So Friday and Monday I sat down, I made myself a good solid working list of projects, and then I got ready to go!  And then I checked the weather.  And I panicked.  I said to Owen “Oh my GOD, I will not be able to work again until Friday and then not again until next Wednesday.”  My kids are in school all day M-W-F, and when a snowstorm hits on Wednesday, it means three days in a row at home.  Add to that MLK day next Monday and after Friday they are home until Wednesday, four days in a row!  If you know me, even if you don’t, you know this stretches my limit of parenting.  I was not born a stay at home mom.  There are a few genes like that I am missing.   I love working.  It makes me SO happy to do what I love [and we have bills to pay, mouths to feed and all that BS].  Don’t get me wrong.  I love my kids too.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually pretty fun.  This time of year, when I am not stressed, we generally have a really good time.  We make tents.  We make cookies.  We paint.  We make a mess.  We visit the train museum.

BUT NOT WHEN WE ARE SNOWED IN WITH NO ESCAPE.

AND NOT WHEN WE LOSE POWER OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

AND NOT WHEN I TRY TIRE THEM OUT BY RUNNING THEM OUTSIDE AND REALIZE THAT I HAVE TO CARRY JANEY AND CHRISTOFER IS FROZEN AFTER 5 MINUTES.

When that happens, it’s not so fun.  So as long as I ignore what is probably jumping on the bed and potty talk in the next room, I can safely say we have ALMOST made it through the storm and we are very excited for school tomorrow.  In the mean time, I did manage to sit them down and force some smiles out of them.

I do love them to pieces.  They are pure happiness [most of the time].

Because it’s been SO long since I’ve blogged them, I figured I’d reintroduce them to you.  I feel like I haven’t shot my kids in so long and the light was so nice when I went to pick them up from school and I just happened to have my gear in the car, so they were patient with me for a few [I am WELL aware that 3 different people heard me not only scolding them, but also bribing them, but I am going to pretend they just willingly participated].

This time of year just feels like a disaster.  I have so many sessions, all of which I love.  Really love [I don't blog a lot of them because I don't want to ruin holiday card and gift surprises].  And I say “I am all booked,” but then I feel bad that I am not shooting more and fitting in last minute clients, so I go ahead and book.  Then I realize that I’ll never get it all done in time.  Then I tell myself that I always get it all done in time.  So as soon as I promised myself “no more sessions,” I went and booked two more.  So the net of it is, I am DONE with sessions [meaning I am not booking any more, I am still shooting the ones I have scheduled].  For now.  If I can have every current client taken care of (meaning galleries out and cards designed and orders in process), I will open up sessions for the first week of December for anyone who can stand to be last minute.  So that’s that. [For the few people that are on my wait list, I'll get with you to see what we can do].

In the mean time, I think things are good here.  Kids are happy.  Owen is happy.  I am happy.  My ears are still a mess, but that’s just the way my ears work.  Mom is better, and yes, I’ve already roped her into coming up to sit for a few hours tomorrow, because I am just like that [actually, it's really just because we miss her!].  I am on the count down to my big birthday, lots of reflections, but I think of how good things are and I realize that the big-four-oh is going to be awesome because mentally I’ve been getting younger ever years since about 32!  Enough of that.  Here are the kids.

I love how she looks at him.  She loves him so much.

Except when she is trying to push him off her.  And actually, she’s a little more mean to him than he is to her.  But she’s a chick, and a beautiful one at that, so there you have it, she can be.

And this.  This is pure unbridled four year old love.  There are just not enough words.

Happiness is firing off one shot and getting this.  And then almost fallen backwards into a swampy cold pond.  But I got it. And that’s all that matters.  I might love this one into a canvas.  Everything that is imperfect about it is so perfect to me.

Seriously.  Because this is the second time I started to title a post “Mine on Monday” only to realize that it’s now after midnight and Thursday.  I have been a bad blogger lately, and it’s not for a lack of subject matter.  I have had some seriously amazing sessions lately, including a fabulous wedding.  I just got caught up a bit in the weeds, sort of like dragging a boat engine through beach grass… but I powered through and can happily say that I am only officially late on two session galleries and then I’ll be cruising!  If those go out tomorrow, I am so good!  I’ve posted a bunch to Facebook, so check it out over there and make sure you “like” my business.

Anyway, amidst some bad fall allergies, the need to get up from my desk, and my OCD to make sure my lenses are not acting up, I shot a quick sesh with the kids.  Let’s clear a few things up right away, this really was just to test my 24-70 2.8L lens to ensure it wasn’t back-focusing, so I put a few important measures to the side.  For instance, many of these are compositionally wrong.  There are chopped limbs galore and yes, I blew out the whites in Janey’s dress.  To state the more obvious, Janey has a teething rash and drip nose from her molars and her diaper is sort of dragging.   Christofer went inside the house after school and changed into something he preferred (“pants with no buttons and no zippers” and a strange summer obsession with long sleeve t-shirts that once belonged to the Fellows boys), my chair needs a final coat of paint (and you should see how cute the blue one looks!).  And the Joe-Joes.  I am sure there are many of you people who frown upon chocolate sandwich cookies at 5:30PM just before dinner (you know who you are, you use salad forks at dinner… mwah).  But my kids won’t give me the time of day if I have my camera in my hand and I REALLY needed to test my lens before my session tomorrow, and so you do what you can.

Anyway, no idea WHY I decided to choose these to blog, other than it’s sort of typical of how we roll here at Casa de 157, just trying to keep it real, yo.

I don’t know if it’s appropriate to say it out loud, but I have been known to lick the side of his face… and to play incessantly with his hair.

I love the progression here from “Fun… are you done… seriously lady, get over it.”

And how in a matter of seconds they go from uber cute and in love to stone-faced children that have no time for my antics.  Do you get what I mean when I say “they gang up on me!”?

Honestly, with the hair pretty, have you ever? [And for you 24-70 haters... look at how crisp that dust and grime and my chair is, back in love with this lens.]

You are probably thinking that these next two are totally unrelated.  They aren’t.  They are related (was that a double negative sentence?)  Image on left is what the demon child looks like when she’s about to take something… with great force.  Image on right is what unsuspecting wounded older brother looks like in the aftermath.

And finally, my girl.  With the slight shadow of a dent in her forehead, just above the left eye… Janey-left-eye-Young… sad evidence of what happens when Mommy chooses to make coffee rather than to help her little girl down the stairs.  Fortunately, she has forgotten and lives her life thinking “Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing…”

Good night my friends.  If you’ve stayed with me this long.  Off to move Christofer to his bed, and no doubt me to Janey’s bed.

The girl.  The girl.  The girl.  The girl is something else.  Everything about the girl is a contradiction, she is completely complex and totally simple.  Even at age two.  For the first 15 months of her life she was Zen Baby.  The baby that barely peeped at night, slept soundly in her crib, just wanted to be on someone’s [Jen's] hip during the day.  Happy to observe with her big moon eyes.  Fifteen to eighteen months she started to find her voice.  Eighteen months and she went from Zen to Chick in a minute.  And we love her.  Every single ounce of her little being.  She is a total mystery to me and I am never sure what to expect next.  She is obsessed with her father, and he with her… but she is also my barnacle girl… attached to my side, all day if she could.

She is beautiful beyond comprehension.

She is tiny, teeny tiny, but packs a punch.

She doesn’t call me mama or mummy… just Mom (“C’mon Mom”).

She is entranced with her brother and whatever he does, no matter how big, she must do it too.

She climbs and contorts herself into the smallest spaces you could ever imagine (toy cubbies 3 feet off the ground, into kitchen cabinets, the 6″ space in between the top of a stool and the underneath of the countertop).

She knows what she wants and how she wants it (“Janey do it by herself… it’s Janey’s turn now.”)

She has a Who voice from Whoville.

She is the mouse.

She is an angel at school.  They want 20 of her.

She loves red patent leather boots.

She burps very loud.  And very often.  Then says “scoos me” and laughs.

She only wears things that her Dad tells her are very pretty.

She can count to ten in Greek and English.

Her favorite song is Itsy Bitsy Spider.

She loves to have her teeth brushed.

She loves to say “Scooby Doo… where are yooooouuuuuu?”

She sleeps the best when I am sleeping with her and she is tucked as tight as she can be to my side… but she hates blankets.

Her best friends are Sosie and Nah-nah.

She is amazing.

The boy is four.  I write that and then I pause, because there is so much more I want to say, but I am having a hard time getting it altogether in a cohesive way.  I know Owen & I are not different than anyone else in our feelings about our kids, so when I write “you can’t even imagine how much we love him” I know that if you are a parent, you do know.  I know my parents felt (feel) this about me, and his about him, and when you have kids, you just love them so much more than you ever thought possible.

But the boy is four and he is MY boy.  He is an extension of me in the truest sense possible.  I know what is coming out of his mouth before he does.  I know how he constructs his thoughts.  I know when he’s being fresh and when he’s really sad and confused.  I know what makes him happy and I know just by a look in his eye that he is going to tell me that his heart is super happy.  He has my attention span.  He has my obsessive pestering habit.  He is persistent and relentless.  He wants to know how it all works and how it all ads up and where it all fits together.

His favorite color is blue.  Sometimes red because it’s faster.  He knows my favorite color is orange.

His two favorite activities are riding his bike and playing Candy Land.

He loves a nice warm shower.

He likes to help his dad do whatever his dad is doing.

He loves his sister and she is the bane of his existence.

He doesn’t like to nap, but he loves to be snuggled.

He wants to hear made up stories about the old train in the abandoned shed.

He is a dancing fool.

He loves Scooby Doo.

He starts his sentences with the word “actually.”

He loves Mrs. Fellows and Jessie (both of them) and Jackie and Rachael and pretty much every other woman or girl he’s ever met.

He knows all the words to almost every single song on “Free to be You and Me” and we sing them every morning.

He can ride on a boogie board and swim across the pool with swimmies.

He wants to grow up so he can play ping pong with the bigger boys but he promises he’ll stay my big baby.