Tethered

One of the things I hear most often from clients when scheduling family photo sessions is something like: “I need to lose (x amount of weight) first.”  And, boy do I get it.  As much as id love to be your resident body positivity girlie, I too, had a weight goal before getting these pictures done.  But then my one-year-old baby almost drowned on Memorial Day.  Thanks to a man we'd never met before who got to him before our whole world stopped, we got to go home with our family in one piece. A miracle.  I remember savoring every single hair on his head, every look, every sound.  I remember my husband and me enjoying each mundane minute of our family life in the days following.  We scheduled our family pictures that week.  And I  definitely didn’t give a shred of attention to my weight.  This isn’t a cheap shot to shame you for wanting to look your best. You deserve to feel beautiful always.  You deserve the curated, Pinterest-worthy ...

He doesn't let me hold him much anymore. He reaches for Daddy. Even when he's hurt. Even in the middle of the night, he'll scream louder if I'm the one that comes in. My older sisters (seasoned mothers) tell me it's normal. Unfair and normal. To see Daddy is special, to see Mommy is expected.  I decided to go off my anti-depressants around the same time I stopped nursing him. What a decision; absolute and willful destitution of dopamine.  It's been since then that the slow ache of the world seems to coincide with the ache for the bond with my baby.  It's like my entire chest feels like a negative charge- repelling everything around me with a pressure that seems magnetic and inevitable in its power.   Lately, I've been sneaking into his room just 5 or 10 minutes before he needs to wake from his nap. I pick his ever-growing body up like he's a newborn and hold him to me. Still sleeping, he lets me. I bury my face in his thin, wispy blonde hair. I hold ...