I chose this photo this month for my self portrait because it’s very telling. There’s me, lovin on my girl while Miles runs around excitedly. The fly on my wall is nodding right now saying, “Yep, she’s right. That’s her whole day.” Two seconds earlier Miles was behind me in the water. He’s a fast kid, with so much to soak up and tell the world.

Right now I’m feeling the most comfortable I have ever felt in my skin as a mom. I’m about as unglamorous as they come, staying home most days, keeping the neighborhood 4 year old’s busy in my backyard and hydrated with watermelon and ice cream cones. I feel anxiety when invited to go out to a nice restaurant or a party because my focus is not on the latest fashions right now, and it shows. Home is where my heart is and I’ve never felt it as intensely as this time in my life. This is definitely a new stage for me as when Miles was this age, I was running all around town, invigorated by my new business, shooting clients and staying up all night editing. I loved being a mom, but there was a wildness to me that needed to still get out and blow off all that creative steam I had.

I’ll get back there, ok, not that same pace, that was crazy, but I’ll get back to shooting. Hopefully I’m still growing during this time of introspection and settling in. Right now I’m just listening to my heart and it’s telling me to just soak this time up. It’s slipping away faster than Miles can run, and trust me, that’s saying quite a bit.

In other news, Miles is going to be getting surgery pretty soon to have tubes put in his ears. (FINALLY! I’ve been talking about Miles’ ears since Halloween. Jeez.) We had his hearing checked and even though he can hear better than he could over the winter, his hearing is still compromised by having negative pressure in his ears. So that just showed us even more proof that our poor boy WAS so misunderstood this winter when some people were saying he wasn’t able to socialize with kids. The doctors said it’s like he was underwater. Who wants to be social when you can’t hear what’s going on? (It has showed me a new realization to why the elderly may retreat when they lose their hearing, which is so sad.) Miles actually just did a painting of the inner ear, complete with ear drum and cochlea, so you can tell that he’s spent a lot of time listening to doctor’s explain ear infections to him and pointing out stuff on the big pictures of ears in their offices. So Miles is playing ALL DAY long with the neighborhood kids and having a blast which makes my heart sing. My house is a constant revolving door of sandy footed kids asking for water, popsicles, pugs or Miles and it’s seriously adorable. As a matter of fact, my sweet boy who used to be fine sitting and reading books in a quiet room doesn’t even know what to do when none of his friends are home now. Good gracious, it’s amazing how quickly kids become dependent on their friends for play.

Jocelyn is walking now more and more and is the happiest little girl I’ve ever met. She waves goodbye to her brother when he goes to preschool in the morning (awwwww!) and clapped at the baseball game last night. Simply adorable. I’m so intensely bonded to this girl that it scares me.

It’s getting late, so I need to shush. Thanks for stopping by. I’m almost half way through this self portrait series now and I’m starting to see that it’s going to be a neat thing to look back on come next January.