Loved this family Christmas portrait session (and personally prefer the final photos over queuing up for hours to sit on Santa’s knee at the local shopping centre).

Now there is the challenge of where to take the Christmas tree next year!  Also love how welcoming this family is with my assistant/daughter Riley… as you can see she’s joined them in a few shots!

If you want to capture your own Christmas traditions and have beautiful images of memories that you can cherish – I’d love to photograph them. Contact me so I can join you on your adventures…

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What happened to my plans for making nutritious food?  It was never going to be grass fed, organic, low carb, paleo, macrobiotic, pro-gut-flora, vegan homemade fare but it was definitely not going to be the snack size packets of pretzels!  Why are my good fine liners ruined and dried out?  Why does my carpet have whiteboard marker scribbles? And where did the Montessori methodology of a small number of toys in reachable baskets that were put away before the next came out go?  The house proud domestic goddess within has shut herself in a small room and dreams of a happier place where just traversing a room doesn’t involve chance encounters with bricks, balls, puzzle pieces, pencils, many magnets and potentially more than one toothbrush!  And what the hell happened to the no screen before two years of age rule?  So perfectly planned daily outings and activities don’t happen but more radio than TV would be a nice start… (she laments whilst typing with the toddler on her lap who is watching music videos on the other screen!?!)

I guess reality happened. And education happened.  Toddlers have so little control of their lives and so little control of their emotions you just have to empathise and pick your battles…   Step one is a quick check of the reason why I want a different outcome to her, and if its because of mess or expectations or something else non-life threatening, then step two is fall back to a default: ‘just say yes’.  Understanding that to her this isn’t about manipulation or power in a traditional sense she is just doing and learning all day. (Although why doing and learning all day involves so much mess or walking up and down the same set of stairs over and over is sometimes incomprehensible!)  This parenting gig is already so draining I can’t imagine fighting her every decision because it inconveniences me.  I also cannot imagine not respecting her enough to explain my decisions or not providing emotional support when she is upset irrespective of its cause.

To answer my own question I think I became ‘that mum’ when I became Riley’s mum.

I’ll finish with a poem I wrote on a bad day… and whilst she is plugged in, I might head over to google and look up a few new craft activities to replace some of that TV time…

My skin is dull, my hair goes grey,
My baby loves me anyway.
The wash piles up. The house? a mess!
Can’t remember my last decent rest…
There’s snot, there’s poop, there are tears and spew,
Thankfully joy and laughter too.
Some days last weeks – I’ve lost all of me,
You demand love and support constantly.
But you’re only small for a little time,
And the hand you reach for won’t always be mine.
You’ll wave goodbye as you walk away,
Not needing my entire day.
So I’ll remember to cherish hugs grime and all,
And ignore texta on carpets and bath water on walls.
I’ll reminisce about your inscenstent chatter,
Knowing the mess etc. just didn’t matter.

For more info on the definition of gentle/attachment/authoritive parenting check this out.  (And yes, I know buying that jar of sprinkles wasn’t very authoritative at all!)  And here’s a fun read from a mum trying authoritative parenting for a week.

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“HOLY FREAKIN’ WOW!!!! Love, love, LOVE our photos!!!! Thank you so much for capturing “us”! The quirkiness and personality is just pouring out of these images! I knew you would be the right photographer for us and our style of wedding and you absolutely did not disappoint! We are absolutely stoked! Thank you again so much.” 

Was a pleasure to shoot and awesome to see a wedding day so full of personality and quirkiness 🙂  Oh and the answer to the question “do you want Deadpool on your roller derby team?” was no, but you’d have to ask the celebrant for the exact details as to why, as I was kinda busy taking photos…

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