3 Things I Worry About Less Now...

There's a lot of things I worry about now I have babies. A LOT. But it's like you have a worry quota in your head, so now I have new things on my worry list some things have been bumped off. Here's 3 that occur to me right now...

My weight

For two reasons. Firstly my body made the two most awesome people I have ever met in my life, if it can do that then it's amazing and I'm not going to be so hard on it all the time. If my body allows a cellulite dimple here or a muffin top there I'm not going to worry, my body's worked pretty hard the last couple of years and if this is the price then that's cool. Secondly no one in this house seems to want to cuddle me any less for the acquire dimples, crinkles and cushioning and if they don't have a problem then neither do I.

Tomorrow

From the second I first got pregnant the ante got upped on every level of things I have to worry about. In an instant I had more to lose than ever and everyday that has passed since then I've only had more and more to lose. So whilst this means I have in the region of 4 million more things to worry about since becoming a Mum, that kind of means I need to learn to enjoy today. I've got my eye on tomorrow and I'm doing my very best to keep everything and everyone all good for tomorrow but being a Mum has taught me the meaning of savouring the moment more than any other experience of my life.

Being Important

When I was 17 my sister joined the Navy and served for 8 months in Iraq. As well as all the worry for my big sister came this awe at how important she was to the world. She was changing things, affecting lives, seeing history... It was the first time anyone really close to me became seriously "important" in that sense and I wanted to be too. From then on I always worried the things I was doing with my life weren't "big" enough. But now I'm a Mum I know in my own very small corner of the world I am very important. I'm someone's mother and to them for now and always that's enormous. Our parents influence so much of who we will be and what we will do. So I am important and that's very cool (and terrifying).

Working Girl!

First up! I am experiencing teeeerrible technical difficulties here so sorry for the gaps between posts! Long story short... Apple is not my friend right now.

Anyway besides the technical faults, the photography has been keeping me more than busy! I'm bussing through everyday with the two wee-ones and every evening is an editing and formatting fest... Its a good kind of busy, obviously there are fates far worse than staring at scrunched up brand new babies all evening and I've got a couple of quid earned by my own fair hands and it feels good.

I'm still riding a real roller coaster of self-confidence with this, so it's probably best to not have a huge amount of time to be thinking about it too much. Just need to keep reminding myself there's no shame in being on a learning curve. As much as I'd only like to be putting myself out there once my photography is at a higher standard I'm just not going to get there without throwing myself in to it now... Big deep breathes.

So whilst I sink back behind my pile of editing here's a few of what I've been doing this week... :D

Happy weekend! :D

Second Time...

I spent a lot of time worrying that being having a second child was going too hectic to enjoy. I imagined there certainly was such a thing as too much of a good thing and I wouldn't be able to love being a Mum like I had.

My reality of it all second time around has been that it is seriously hectic. Most days I wake up, roll around in bed for about ten minutes whilst baby and toddler sniffs and squiggly noises bring me in to the land of the living. Then we're up and I swear the world fast forwards on it's hinges, everything happens in lightening speed. My head buzzes thinking ten tasks ahead of the present to make sure everything happens in the right order and before I know it we're a dozen near-emergencies dodged, my hair's resembling a birds nest, the lounge looks like a toy emporium and the day is over! In a flash, like that a day is done. And every day is over like that. NEOWWWWNNNN... (That's a fast car noise.)

That sounds negative. Sometimes it is. Sometimes my back aches, the domestic mess irritates me and my chipped nails piss me off and I wish I had a little more time. On the whole though it's great. Because what happens when you ride out everyday at lightening speed is you get rid of a lot of nonsense. Some nonsense is tangible, actual stuff that doesn't happen anymore, like I never really clean the highchair, I hardly ever get to go shopping so all of Euna's tights have holes or stains and I am yet to put Bow in clothes that aren't baby grows. The other nonsense is nonsense that's not happening in my head and the vast majority of it is one form or another or worrying. Like I don't really worry if Euna's naps go AWOL, much less bothered if we don't leave the house some days, I'm never concerning myself with implementing some new parenting initiative I read about in an article (because I haven't read the article), I don't see something someone else is doing and instantly feel bad that's not what we're doing... Stuff like that.

Basically second time is like being able to parent on a permanent chill pill. It's sans all that jittery rawness of first time and what's left is a steadier head, way more self-belief, the ability to enjoy more fully and because I know what's to come I am so much less nervous to lose my baby to childhood.

Bada-bup-bayaaahhhhh I'm loving it! ;) Some snaps from last week...

Baby Toes #2

I think I've posted baby toes before but they really are the cutest things to photograph. These are from a little newborn shoot I had last week. 

Tiny little newborn tootsies really are the epitome of baby newness. So soft, clean, crepe paper thin skin, barely wrinkled, not even stepped a single step yet... The places they'll take him! :D 

Happy Valentine's Day!!

I've never been one for Valentines Day. It doesn't make me particularly sentimental and it never once depressed me in my single days. Don't get me wrong, I pretty much expect a card from Steve and I'm all for excuses to make an effort for quality time together and my enthusiasm can be known to peak if a glass of something bubbly is on offer... So you definitely won't get a rant about it being a corporate holiday invented by card companies blah blah blah... Short version is I'm on the fence on February 14th.

But love huh?! That's a BIG topic. This year I have all varieties to celebrate. The marital and romantic varieties (not always the same thing). The Mummy to daughter type. The Mummy to son type. The kind I feel for my own parents, somewhat redefined and much more in focus since becoming a Mum myself. I've got it all this year and that's a lot of love!!

Recently had some turning-30-making-me-reasses-absolutely-everything-and-judge-myself-and-my-life-and-all-my-decisions-and-all-my-achievements-really-really-harshly wobbles. It occurs to me this valentines day I'm feeling way more of the L-stuff than ever and that's very cool. So cool infact I'm thinking about using Valentines Day as the new reassessment point in my year. Better than New Year, better than birthdays. Valentines is the new "what the hell am I doing with myself?" day, because all I need to look at is if I've got a lot of the big L going out to a lot of different places.

I feel pretty happy thinking about it all that simply. So maybe February 14th is the day to strip it all back to life's best freebie and let that very basic element be your barometer...?

Anyway, here we are spreading some of that love with a little toddler Valentine's crafting...

Reflecting on a Time Budget

A very good friend of mine just had a baby. Her second. Her first is within weeks old of Euna. We're close and it's like I'm seeing all my own having-a-second-newborn-early-days again. And because I was so in throws of it I didn't blog any of it.

I didn't blog the instant urge to protect Euna from any change or any drop in Mummy's attention. I didn't talk about how protective I felt over Bow around those flailing toddler arms. I never got a chance to mention how I obsessively needed to prove I cope with two from day 1 by trying to breastfeed a newborn whilst reading a faved Julia Donaldson book to a toddler. I haven't even had a chance to really think about putting in to words how, after months and months of worrying, how seamlessly equally I love them both.

It's all been so huge but so organically normal at the same time. Maybe only seemingly organic because it's been so busy. We wake and go from one thing to the next to the next... We slump on the sofa and as if by some trick it's bedtime! The benefit of little reflective time... It just happens. And often if I don't have time to think about things, the right things happen.

We're all alive so some of the right things must be happening right?!

From the parts of my week when I got to photograph my own babies... First up BUNCHES?! BUNCHES!!!!! (That's British for "pig tails" FYI)

Newborns & New Lessons...

There's been a mad rush on the photography front. Friends babies and friends of friends babies = Mini snowball!

It's scary. It's new and I'm out of my comfort zone and I feel pretty silly when I talk to people about it all. I'm trying to stay focused on the idea that if I'm feeling this way then it's proof I'm pushing myself, that I'm learning and that I'm putting myself out there. All good "seize the day" stuff. 

Here's a few fruits of my labours... 

Bow Through a Macro...

Pooped! (As in "tired" ok?!)

Pooped. In the truest sense of the word I am POOPED! Everyday. Everyday I screech in to the evening and on to the sofa achey and brain buzzing. In the region of 472627393 people told me I was "going to have your hands full" when I was pregnant and they were all right. Not that I doubted it but nothing really prepared me for the reality of the fact. 

Don't get me wrong it's a wonderful kind of busy and my hands are full with wonderful things, but it's a lot. I buzz through everyday trying to think 3 steps ahead to the next meal, nappy, feed, toddler singing class... I rattle everything through my head in bed every night and it's a good job I'm that tired  or I'd never sleep. 

Blogging and taking photographs is proving to be a good anchor. It reminds me of when we got married and the best advice I ever got was to keep checking the time on our wedding day to make us stop and take it all in, stop the time running away. Blogging is a bit like that. Like checking the clock. 

Time check...

My favourite photo in a long time...