As T2 and I made our way across the stage at my undergraduate convocation I felt overwhelmed. My family contributed so much to make this happen and I can’t thank them enough.

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I have had this post sitting in my drafts folder for so long that I don’t even know when this picture was taken! It’s fun to see my bald-headed baby doing superman style exercises on the floor. Look at this recent Instagram photo to see how much he has changed!

This post I’ve had lingering at the back of my mind for over a year now is about babies and schedules and relaxing.

Having a baby is really overwhelming, especially the first time. I couldn’t sit down or stand up or lay down without being reminded that my vagina had almost been ripped in half. I wasn’t producing enough milk (but didn’t know it) so my poor kid screamed non-stop and was half-starved in his first weeks of life. T1 didn’t sleep through the night until 7 months, when I finally decided it was time to put him down full of formula, shut the door, and let him cry it out (he is a champion sleeper now, and has been since then). Read more →

Lucky T1 was gifted a Burberry Polo. He looks pretty cute in it, as long as you don’t mind the drippy nose. These pictures are from January, so he looks a little bit more grown up now. And of course, he’s too big to wear this now (I think that even if T2 is a girl, we could get some use out of this, right?).

Polo: Burberry Baby

Pants: Baby Gap

Shoes: Baby Gap

Soccer mom?

Going out to California last month was a bit of a wake-up call for me. All of the women that I met were so incredibly accomplished! One of them actually worked as a anesthesiologist, and then decided to become a lawyer. How awesome is that?!?! I was surrounded by consultants and lawyers and people working at promising start-ups and women who have young children now but who did those things before they had children and are taking a short break.

Me? I graduated from high school, went to college and shopped majors until I settled on one that’s part of the humanities, which virtually guarantees me a tiny salary if I decide to go to work (they really need to post that Georgetown Study in big letters in college advisement centers across the country). Oh yeah, and I technically haven’t even graduated yet! Marking “some college” on forms is always a thrill.

This summer I’m moving past the college graduation hurdle, but I don’t have immediate plans to pursue a career which means I’m slated to continue to show up at cocktail parties embarassed about what I do. We’ll be standing in a group and my husband will introduce himself and be asked what he does. He will reply, and it will be my turn.

What’s your name? “Jenna.”

What do you do? “Oh, I’m just a mom.”

NO!

I don’t want to be that way anymore. There is no need to get in some sort of flame war arguing about who has it harder, stay-at-home-moms or working-moms, because both groups are both spending time doing something valuable throughout the day. If I decided to get a job and we hired a nanny that person would never say “I’m just a nanny.” I’ve also never heard “I’m just a doctor,” “I’m just a consultant”, or “I’m just in sales.” I’ve certainly never seen a man cast his eyes down and answer apologetically about his job.

I am choosing to do this. It is my profession. It is what I do. Arguments that posit you can only count something as a profession if you’re paying taxes or being handed a paycheck are silly and not worth paying attention to.

Next time I’m asked what I do I have a variety of responses I can give. “I stay home with my son,” or maybe “I split my time between photography and motherhood.” But you won’t hear me say “Just a mom” anymore. We as women can all lend a little more respect to our chosen vocation by showing how proud we are to be doing what we do each day.

Dear T1,

We have crossed a great river. It is an obstacle I didn’t even know we had reached until we were sopping wet on the shore looking at where we had been, but oh the joy at realizing where we are now versus before. Parenting ebbs and flows in terms of difficulty and frustration and I-can’t-do-this-for-one-more-day moments, but then there are the bursts of elation that serve as memory wipes. You go from the child who unrolls an entire roll of toilet paper while I’m making dinner and takes off his poopy diaper in the middle of the night (smearing it all over your bed like a Pollock in embryo) to the delightful creature who runs into a room just to say hello in a squeaky excited voice and plays Angry Birds while dancing awkwardly around the room with pointer fingers stuck in the air. These darling moments make my heart sing. It swells and strains within my breast and I understand why people would want to do this one, two, three, four, five times.

There are so many days where I have scooped you up to smother you with kisses, telling you “I just love you so much” over and over again. Because I do.

This letter is a mix of random observations I’ve made over the past few months. The things that made me laugh, a few that made me clench my teeth and take deep breaths, snippets of the moments we’ve shared that make you who you are at two years old. The pictures throughout are from a morning when we went out to play with your best friends, Jude and Brooklyn. You adore them. Read more →