In Brisbane this week, we felt the affects of Tropical Cyclone Marcia in the form of drenching rain. Nothing life threatening for us, but it meant almost five days of bunkering down at home with our kiddies. To say we all had cabin fever was an understatement. The kids didn't do too badly really and relished the hours of kids movies, shopping centre playgrounds and properly pulling out all of their toys. The sunshine this morning was a welcome sight as we all escaped out into the backyard.
52 Project - 7.52
When I write a little text to go with my blog post each week, I have the 'I want to remember' prompt in my mind. It's usually something about the stage of their young lives, what they're doing right now. This week though, it's very literal and very specific. I want to remember this morning. Last Sunday morning. We were pottering around in the back yard in the early morning, Chris was watering some plants with the hose, which leaks at the tap link. Jameson knows this, and if you know him, he knows water is his thing. So rather than compete for the nozzle of the hose, he hangs around the tap and plays with the drips and the eventual puddle that grows at his feet. Both kiddies were in their pyjamas and they both got soaked. Chris was finished with the hose so we disconnected it, stripped the kids out of their wet pyjamas and turned the tap on to a slow dribble. They were out their for an hour splashing, filling, pouring, tipping, running, laughing. I did my best not to intervene and observed quietly and only made them come inside for a warm bubble bath when I could see them shivering. They were in heaven, as was I.
These photographs are not the best of the bunch, but they're the only ones I'm willing to put online ;-) The colour, full length versions are fabulous - I'm only sorry I didn't have my film camera loaded because they would have been something else! I'm tempted to make a small book just from this morning outside, because it was perfection.
52 Project - 6.52
We've had a rough week, our little man was sick for most of it which meant a lot of snuggling, quiet activities, napping and lots of restless nights. He's come good again now so he's back to his usual tornado-of-destruction self while mama tries, in vain, to catch up on sleep.
She doesn't nap every day anymore, when she does I see a glimpse of the same newborn face that slept on my chest all those years ago. This week was hard for her, a slow rest-filled week is no fun when you're well, but it's equally no fun if you go to kindy while your sick brother stays at home. My poor darling girl.
He was so sick all week, we spent most of our time cuddled up together, resting and negotiating panadol delivery as his fever rose again. He was determined to play in the windows of time when he felt well enough so most of our time was spent on the floor making award-winning duplo constructions, learning to roll balls (as opposed to throwing them in the house) and racing cars.
I'm sneaking in two photographs of the two of them this week, one from a morning at the park yesterday - she loved being big enough to push him on the swings and apparently having her push him was far more entertaining than mama or dada doing it.
The other is from a rare moment of them playing quietly, side by side in their playroom during our sick week. (This is far prettier in colour but I've unintentionally committed to a black and white project, so black and white it will be ;)
52 Project - 5.52
This week was one of those weeks when I felt like I did a bit better job at being the kind of mama I would want to be every single day. Slower days, mornings spent painting with water colours, fresh pikelets made for morning tea, cold ice blocks on the trampoline in the afternoon, less shouting, more cuddles and sitting on the floor with them, waiting longer until we got out of our pyjamas. And best of all, laying down with them both in our bed for their midday nap. Bliss!
This is their thing right now, cups of crushed ice while sitting down to watch a kids movie, they crunch on it all day long (they get that from me ;). And they ask for it first thing in the morning too.
She is understanding the concept of using watercolours more and more. She is taking her time to mix the water into the paint to a consistency she likes before she paints. Watching her assess the brush before dipping into the water and paint again, or touching it to the paper gives me such joy.
He must be doing what she is doing, so I set up wet watercolours for him. He is becoming more deliberate in what he marks on the paper and where, and knows when it's finished without drowning the page in paint as he's done previously. This masterpiece is up on the wall.
52 Project - 4.52
She is talking all.the.time. It feels like it's non-stop. We're running a fine line between obliging her, answering her questions as best we can, engaging in conversation, and begging for a moment or two of silence.
It's payback I'm sure, I've been told I can talk an ear off ;)
He is beginning to happily play on his own, carefully building towers then taking delight in smashing then down, pushing anything on wheels with a 'brrrrrrmmm' as he does, and gentle moments of tending to his sisters dolls, rocking them to sleep or pushing them around in a pram.
They could do this all day long. Our mornings and afternoons outside are spent with mama manning the tap as they speed back and forth for refills of their watering cans. Remembering to water our plants has always been something I forget to do, so this is a happy outcome for us all.
52 Project - 3.52
He turned two yesterday. He still keeps me up a lot of the night, so after I snapped a few frames of his peaceful face, I lay down next to him and napped. Fitting considering we spent most of his first day two years ago snuggled up together.
He is strong-willed, determined, feisty, affectionate, funny, enthusiastic, busy, loves to cuddle and has the-best belly laugh. Ever.
He is so loved and we're so lucky to spend our days with him.
All week she has been excited for his birthday, excited because she was in on the gift buying, had wrapped her own gift from her to him and she knows what birthdays are all about. But it all came crashing down yesterday when she wasn't the one doing the gift opening and the cake wasn't placed in front of her. It was a rough day for her. One of many hard lessons she'll have to learn, oh her gentle heart.
52 Project - 2.52
Second week into this project and I'm enjoying it, but boy it makes the week fly by. Back to my part time job today, which meant the kiddies were back to day care, thank goodness it's summer and we can spend a good hour outside in the afternoon eating ice-blocks, jumping on the trampoline and burning off the last of the days energy.
This week I photographed my first session for the year, wow!, if that session, that sweet family and the photographs we made together are anything to go by, then this year is going to be a truly wonderful one! The session was booked as a Nourish - Milk Drunk Love Stories session for a super-star tandem feeding mama, but her boys had other ideas for our afternoon so we had fun hanging out together before they headed home the following day. Here's hoping I can share a little of our afternoon together soon.
My sweet, determined, feisty four-year-old began her kindy year this week at day care, all of a sudden those four years seem to have flown and I feel her childhood swiftly replacing her baby/toddler/small-child hood. I feel like I have to keep my eyes held open extra wide this year to take it all in. Sometime I stare at her, amazed, and remind myself that I grew her in my body, and I am amazed further still.
I still cuddle him to sleep every night, it's what he needs, and to be honest, I delight in it. The nights when I feel I'd like to have my arms free I am quickly reminded that this too shall pass and he won't need to be wrapped up against me to fall asleep, and I will sorely miss it. This week he has been curling his arm up and around my face as he falls asleep, tracing circles on my cheek with his little fingers. Oh my heart.
He follows her wherever she goes and obeys her every command happily. When I was pregnant with him, a friend was assuring me that my heart would grow to allow space to love both children equally. And more than that that I would discover a third love when the second is born, their love. I adore it and am grateful they will always have each other.
Thankful to be joining in with Jodi on this project, read more about how the project came about, here.
Renee x
52 Project - 1.52
Happy New Year! We're keeping cool in this Queensland heat by alternating between bunkering down in the air conditioning with craft activities or kids movies, and heading outside in the early morning or late afternoon to sit in the blow up pool or splash at the water table (thanks, Santa!) I hope your Christmas/New Year period has been joy-filled.
As you can imagine, my kids are more often than not my photography subject, be it on film, learning with my newly acquired DSLR (yes, that 'D' is for ... digital!) or a quick snap on the ever present iPhone. I'm so happy they will have piles of photographs of their everyday when they're older, I remember flicking through a box of photographs that my mum kept in a box in the linen cupboard - all of the 'outtakes' that never made it to the albums, but they were always our favourites. Living in digital times means an abundance of photographs of our lives, but they're all living on our phone or hard drives (even my film is scanned and stored digitally as well as the physical negative), forgotten after a few shares on social media and after their place at the front of the camera roll is replaced with newer versions. It's why I'm so dedicated to delivering physical photography products to my clients, but more on that another day.
Following a few parenting and lifestyle blogs, I began to take notice of the 52 Project that a lot of the blog authors were participating in - sharing a portrait of their child, once a week, every week. For me that's an achievable goal, the frequency suits me and I can see the physical product at the end - a book of my children's year complete with musings of little moments that I don't want to forget of them and that I want them to know about.
So, here we go, the first entry of this project, I'm so looking forward to working on this and observing my children with a new awareness.
Santa delivered the kiddies a trampoline for Christmas, it has been a huge hit! We're all outside multiple times a day and the kids are burning off loads of energy. Georgina especially loves it and would spend most of her day out on it, she's content jumping around on it or laying on her back looking up at the sky. And braids, she is all about her hair being braided right now, she has been challenging me with new ways to make four and five braids in her fine fly away hair.
My littlest love in an unusual moment of stillness. He is our tornado of destruction, I am usually on the chase when it comes to photographing him. The frame before this one is him saying 'cheese', the frames that followed were of him sticking stickers on his cheek, he is sticker-obsessed, he sticks them all over the house on any surface and anyone. But this frame, and those eyes and those chubby cheeks, I couldn't go past it.
(Meanwhile, that spot above his limp is a pimple! He is 23 months old and he has his first pimple ...?)
Another rarity, my babes, snuggling together without one trying to squirm away from the other. I'm not sure that I'll include a photo of them together each week for this project, but it might be a happy little addition every now and then.
You can read about how the 52 Project came to be on Jodi's blog Practising Simplicity, and join in if you like. The second part of this memory keeping project has been inspired by a post on Elise's blog about a different spin on documenting her daughter's year. My husband and I always lament "I hope we don't forget how they say this or do that", I'm hoping the 'I want to remember' prompt takes care of all of that.
I'd love to hear more about if you work on memory keeping for your family, and how. Perhaps the 52 Project is something you could begin for yourself?
Renee x