There’s never time for a self portrait, so I grabbed this on my way out the door to do preschool pick up. Here’s me in my new favorite summer scarf (please come summer!) and I now wear a headband 24-7 because the hair that fell out over the winter has now grown back in little two inch spikes and curls around my head.

Last self portrait I was hiding. Hiding from my son being misunderstood, illness, exhaustion and the weather. Well, the sun has broken through the clouds and for the lion’s share of April, things really made a huge turn for the better for me/us. For one, Miles’ ear infection got knocked out and almost immediately he came out of his shell. (You know, that shell that brought up all sorts of red flags?) He’s playing with kids like crazy and just engaging in life in general more. It feels like a miracle. Miles has always taken the world in through his ears, so it’s no wonder that he has disengaged this past winter when the world has felt underwater to him.

Jocelyn is a little dynamo and I find myself ignoring piles of laundry and email reply to just lay on the floor and hold her, snuggling and soaking up her giggles and squeals.

I turned thirty six in April and got to get together with some great friends of mine out of town for a very surreal day of shopping, eating out and talking.

April was also the month that John and I FINALLY went out on a date out of the house with the kids. We have gone out twice now without the kids in the past nine months. I know, I know, that sounds ridiculous, but what can I say, I’m just in a family driven hermit mode. I definitely want to get out more this summer and I have a goal for John and I to go away over night together by the end of summer when Jocelyn is a year old. (That’s pretty big for me as John and I didn’t leave Miles over night together until we had another baby!)

As I type this, our family prepares for a road trip to the beach soon and we all, with the exception of John, have sore throats and runny noses. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN TO US AGAIN? It’s seriously getting so old. Are the walls of my house lined with black mold? Anyway, that’s talking about May so I should shush since this is April’s self portrait post, but just had to throw it out there that May is starting bumpy. I really hope to be showing another smiling photo next month!

PS I never noticed until this photo how the blue tint in my contacts (not colored contacts, just tinted so you can find them better, I guess?) really show up in photos on the whites of my eyes. That’s so weird. I’ve never seen that when photographing other people.