Mom Photographer and The Gang

I know that most of my posts from this series starts from the sentence “how crazy the last week has been” or “how tired I am”, blah, blah, blah.

So this one won’t be any different.

Our No.2 won’t stop crying when she is not on my lap, in my arms, holding my fingers, holding my hair… she just needs to be with me. It’s getting worse and worse.

She doesn’t sleep through the day if I put her in her crib. She’ll be crying there as long as I let her. Since I am not a big fan of an attachment parenting I let her cry from time to time.  A few days ago she cried for over one hour laying in her crib. It didn’t work. Yesterday she cried for 40 minute to finally fall asleep for 10 minutes after which she woke up and had started when she had finished with the crying, but louder this time.

Even now, she is sitting on my lap, pounding on the keyboard and deleting half of what I had written every few minutes. at least she is not screaming.

The dog is a piece of work as well.

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Even feeling overwhelmed, I try to smile to my daughters a lot. I do not want them to see me unhappy and sad all the time. On Friday we had some goofing off time while husband went to the park with No.1 and the dog.

This series of pictures was taken for one of my bloggy friends, Purnima. She’s challenged me to take a smiling/laughing shots of myself. So here they are:

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You know you are a mother when you don’t remember your last HOT MEAL, and when you eat standing, always ready to run to do something for the kids, to rescue them, to refill their cups, to put more food on their plate, to clean spilled liquids, etc.

At the same time the irregularity of eating causes me to gain weight, which I am not very comfortable with.

Being an emotional eater I eat way too much these days, and I eat not very healthy… sweets and bread mostly. It’s quick and suits me, and after a few minutes I hate myself again.

Today I am bigger than I was when I was 9 months pregnant with our No.2.

Can you believe that?!

Ugh.

I am so frustrated.

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Sunday.

I was waiting to take a self-portrait for way too long that day. At the end of the day I just snapped a few shots of my face in the mirror. they came out very dark and grainy, but I actually like them.

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Do you remember my crochet fingerless gloves?

So this week I have finished matching camera strap cover.

I’m very happy with the final product.

It looks like my camera is ready for the Fall.

Now I just need to snap a picture of the matching headband I made a week ago.

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As much as I hate the way I look in this picture I decided to post it anyway, because the story behind it is funny.

I know that if I didn’t tell you most of you wouldn’t even know that the framed picture is not from the period when I was pregnant with No.2.

It is from when I was pregnant with No.1

I grabbed this picture thinking that it was taken while I was pregnant with our last kid and I thought it would make a great picture.

After a few shots, and the frame being all dirty from drooling over and chewed I looked at No.1 wandering around and looking at us and it occurred to me: this makes no sense, this is not the right picture.

So I put the picture down and called No.1 to join us, and this is what we ended up with:

At this point it occurred to me that my husband is not in any of my self-portraits. I think I should include him in this project more often. Don’t you think. But it will be a challenge as he doesn’t like to be photographed.

This picture above would be great if he was standing behind me, for example.

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She won!

This was taken after one of those one-hour-long-screaming sessions. She is all sweaty with red chicks, but oh… so content in my arms. 

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And again, back to eating.

Can’t wait for a warm slice of a fresh-baked bread.

World could be falling apart, but if I have my bread and some butter spread over it and a few slices of tomato…, I don’t care.

In addition there is an interesting theme going on this week at Bonnie’s blog: “compose a seven word sentence that describes your life or experience or process as an artist, and marry your sentence to a piece of photo art that somehow illustrates your sentence.

I’ve thought about it, and my initial plan was to give each photo from this post one word, but I changed my mind and have decided to write about my secret idea that have cruised in my head for a quite sometime.

After No.1 was born I had decided to start a photography business. We’d done some arrangements… but then life had happened and I abandoned this idea, probably forever (that’s what I thought back then).

All of the sudden, a few weeks ago, this idea came back. I’ve been thinking about it since. Every single day. Should I do it? Is there a place for me out there among so many photographers already.

I feel like I’ve come to a point where I want to do something more that just click-clicking for myself. 

My seven words then:

WANNA BE A PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER (SOMETIME SOON)

They aren’t a fancy quote, they are simple, but oh.. they won’t let me sleep or think about anything else!

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• POLAND: (Self)Portrait of a mother(hood) (worldmomsblog.com)