Considering I spent the bulk of my teenage years completely skirting my dad's camera and my mom's incessant requests to get family photos taken, it's a little bit shocking the amount of pictures I've not only organized but willingly participated in the past few years. It must have something to do with being a parent and realizing how awesome it is to a) have someone else take (good) pictures for you and b) actually get a photo with your whole family in it at the same time! I know I've apologized before but I feel like I need to do it again: mom, I'm sorry for the things I did and pictures I avoided when I was teenager. I wholeheartedly get it now. I sincerely hope this apology voids me from having to go through a similar process with my girls when the day comes and I can't dress them up similarly and force them in front of a camera.... although I highly doubt it for some reason. I'm sure I'll get what's coming to me and more and for this reason, among others, I will get all the pictures taken now, while we can!
i swear, if there was a way to bottle the energy that toddlers expel (or at least mine!) we could power the world for a week. i start picking things up at one end of the house and by the time i reach the middle, it looks like i've left a tornado path behind me. just this week june figured out how to put the drain stop in the bathroom sink. and with an improvised yoga block on top of a stool, she can now reach the tap. so i'm constantly playing catch up to make sure we aren't flooding our top floor - not to mention the creams she constantly finds and tries to moisturize herself with... my lipsticks three of which have now stumpy tops, really anything that stains or leaves a grease mark behind she has a beacon to find it.
Last week when it stopped raining for like, a day, we went strawberry picking. We all wore white and immediately regretted it because the berries were basically dripping red water from all the rain we'd had the previous night. And not to belabour the rain part but it has rained so much the past few weeks that someone got stuck in the make-shift parking lot in the field.
On Father's Day morning I told Mike he could sleep in... and then I revoked that offer when 6 am rolled around and I had been up off and on since four. BUT BUT, I did send him back to bed at 8 so that's fair right? And I mean, he slept like a log through about 2 solid hours of June's "have a present for you dad" ringing throughout the house. She was SO excited to give him his gift which she helped wrap, and to bring him the breakfast, the bagel which she helped butter. I'm not making this up you guys but she calls herself "Helpy Bear" and if you do not let her butt her chair up to the counter to "help", the entire neighbourhood will hear about it. It's a tough balance....
When June was one month old, Mike sprained his ankle playing soccer. He drove home half-an-hour using his left foot (because it was the right one he hurt.) After i got over the yelling about his foolishness of driving home that way, and when it was clear he wouldn't be walking on it for weeks, (it was a really bad sprain) he made the decision to start working from home. His parking spot was a good 10 minute walk into his building... and because as a researcher, he really didn't need to go into work, he just always had because he liked the social aspect of being around the people. Anyway. That was almost exactly two years ago and he's still working from home.
Happy Monday everyone! We are in the middle of a beautiful heat wave here in Ottawa and I say this with glee because we have air conditioning and I'm able to truly appreciate it ;) Luckily the heat came after June's birthday party over the weekend. We decided to hold it at our house again this year; last year I had a big elaborate first birthday planned for June at a park here in Ottawa, called Mooey's Bay. The theme was watermelons, as in "Down by the Bay" and the invites said "We're Mooney for Juney" (Mooney is one of her nicknames!).
When Flora was six days old we had our friend Alex from Tiny Marvels come over to take some pictures - kind of a 2.0 to the ones we had her do for us over the winter. and fyi, I've been sitting on these all weekend which was so hard for me (!!) Alex is a new mama too and knew how i just wanted to capture a snapshot of life in our own space. Nothing like a fellow new mother who's also a photographer to literally get all sentimental with you about your growing family.