I have a problem. . .

Perfectionism. It's something many people struggle with every day. I am one of those people. Some people think that it's not necessarily a bad thing. It is when it keeps you from living your life the way you want to because you hold back until everything is "just right" because guess what? IT NEVER IS JUST RIGHT!

SO! I stopped blogging a lot because I always felt the blog posts had to be these amazing works of my creativeness. Yeah, that's sad.

Anyway, today I am going to post about how much I miss my baby boy and how I am so afraid he's going to have more fun with other people this summer than he will have with me. He's been gone to Texas for two weeks and then he came back for about two days before he headed off to Macon to be with my parents for a week. It's been perfect timing as I have been insanely busy, but I still miss him dreadfully.

This was taken the night he returned home from Texas.

Deep down, I know that I don't have to be spectacularly amazing for him to enjoy being with me but working from home makes things difficult at times. He knows that when I am home I am working but it still doesn't quite make sense to him why I can't play or let him go outside and play without me being there to watch out for him (yes, I'm THAT mom).

I told him we'd do craft projects this summer and I haven't gotten any of the stuff together yet to do them. However, we did do ONE together before he left which was (in my mind) a failure, but at least they were tasty.

 This would be my attempt at making dinosaur fossil cookies. They don't look too bad pre-oven do they with the jelly beans and m&ms as dinosaur eggs and cinnamon & brown sugar as dirt? . . .

I don't have any post images because let's just say the dough completely spread out to the point where it was just one sheet of COOKIE (singular) and the dinosaur footprints were nowhere to be found.

Oh WELL! That is life. And at least we had fun making them.

And that's all I have to say about that. :D

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Challenges of Motherhood

Being a mother is a lot more challenging and plain out HARDER than I ever thought it would be. A baby is a walk in the park compared to when they get to be around 6-7 years old in MY book. I will not make this blog post a list of all of the things I have found challenging in the past year. . .

Instead, I will discuss one thing that has been a thorn in mine and Spencer's side. Teaching Liam how to ride a bike.

{{SIGH}}

Now I will admit that I had my own challenges when learning to ride a bike. But, honestly, those challenges came once my training wheels were off the bike. Hmmmm, whereas Liam's have come from the time he started riding a tricycle.

First, his legs were too short, then it was just too hard for him to push the pedals, then his legs were too long for a trike and they kept hitting the handlebars.

Okay, then he inherited a bike from a good buddy of his. Spencer and I went out and got training wheels to put on it. Somehow he never could ride it though. I don't blame him on that one though. I tried riding it myself and the pedals really seemed stuck.

(Feel free to go ahead and picture me on a kid's bike now)

NEXT, I tried him on a bike at Wal-Mart to see if the situation were hopeless.

He rode it fine. Good news. So my mom and dad got him the bike he wanted for a gift

on Spencer's and my wedding anniversary.

Well. . .my dear, dear, DEAR boy has fears. Fears that his Transformer helmet and shoulder and knee pads can't seem to fend off. This could be because I made the mistake of letting him ride it one time without the knee pads and he scraped his knee. Or it could be due to my misguided effort to make him feel better about falling by telling him about my own war wound.

When I had learned to ride my bike I had issues making U-turns while riding. Instead, I would stop the bike, turn it around, and then keep going. Well, one day I thought I had conquered this inability and decided to show my dad. Well, let's just say my U-turn was more like an L-turn. . .right into a tree. Long story short, one trip to the emergency room, eight stitches, and about 20 years later I am fine and have a fine scar to show for it. But the important thing is I survived.

(I also didn't ride my bike again for years after that, at which time I got stung by a paper wasp that had built its nest under my seat,

but I left that part out of the story to Liam)

Unfortunately, the only thing Liam got from this story was that I fell and hurt myself badly and he does NOT want that to happen to him.

Inadvertently I made it more challenging to teach him to ride a bike.

{{SIGH}}

I guess the point that I need to take away from this experience is that if I don't want him to give up on learning to ride his bike then I don't need to give up on helping him get over his fears. . .but that is such a difficult thing to do when it takes time and patience that I don't necessarily possess in abundance. But aren't the things that end up being the most precious also the things that take the most out of us?

I'll leave that question up in the air and share with you some images of one of the times Spencer and I took Liam out riding.

Doesn't he look thrilled?

Spencer doing what he can to motivate him as well as assure him that he is always there in case he should call. I married a great guy. :)

One of the few times I caught him smiling.

Just look at the determination in his shoulders and his whole posture in this shot. Love it.

His expression in the middle shot just kills me. . .in a good way.

By this time, he was somewhat getting the hang of things and quite happy about it.

Thanks for listening. :D

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Motherhood :: Covington Georgia Family Photography

Being a mother is hard. Especially when your child is SO much like you in so many ways and not in so many others. My poor boy talks too much just like I did (and do) and has my stomach issues and says the most random unexplainable things out of the blue that makes you wonder just how his mind works and struggles with math. Ask my mom and dad, just like me at his age. . .and sometimes even now.

One way that he is not like me is his timidity in standing up for his religion. This is his first year being the only one of Jehovah's Witnesses in his class. It's a new experience for him and I didn't realize that.

He was telling us about how on the first day of school each student had to tell the others some unique things about themselves. He told his name and that his favorite book was "How to Train Your Dragon" and a few other things. Innocently, I asked him if he told them he was one of Jehovah's Witnesses since that is pretty unique.

"NO! I didn't just want to blurt that out."

"Well, honey, it wouldn't have been blurting it out since you were telling them things about yourself."

"Oh."

After a few more minutes of talking, I realized something.

"Liam, are you scared of telling them?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I'm the only one out of 23 students in the class!"

That's when I really thought about it and realized that this is a whole new experience for him. And it scares him. And that's how he's not like me. I was bold from a very early age about my religion. One of my friends from childhood's favorite memory of me is when she first met me in first grade and she was new in the area and also one of Jehovah's Witnesses. We were in the same class and sitting in a group discussing birthdays and I stood right up and said, "Heidi and I don't do that! We're Jehovah's Witnesses."

That same boldness carried on as I progressed in school. I argued...ahem...debated evolution with my atheist biology substitute teacher and brought my Bible to school as some classmates and I would have lengthy discussions in the school cafeteria. When kids teased me, I took it in stride and never really let it bother me.

Every day Liam talks to me about how awesome Jehovah is for creating the bugs and the flowers and everything so I never thought he would be timid in school. Now, I am just going to have to focus on helping him understand that if he truly believes in what we teach him from the Bible that courage is needed to tell others the things he is learning. That it's okay to be afraid but it's even more important to rely on Jehovah to conquer that fear.

Below is a picture that I found on one of my recent visits home of my friend from childhood whom Facebook has reconnected me with. We stayed close growing up even when we moved physically apart and I was in her wedding but then, as it often goes in life, we drifted apart. Facebook is good for some things. ;)

Since this last week was my last week before I get braces on for the next two years, I had a last-minute hair-brained scheme and was bound and determined to get some images of me with my loved ones. This started with setting up the tripod at the beach for a few family shots (which I will show you guys soon although they aren't the best) and then the Wednesday before I got them on, Spencer and I took Liam to a local park to practice riding his bike and to also get some fun shots of him and me as mother and son. Not to mention, let Spencer get some practice in. ;)

We started out goofy. . .

. . .then got really sweet.

I do believe I am in love with this shot.

These next two as well, but the top one especially, I absolutely love.

I think it's pretty safe to say that Spencer did a pretty durn good job, at least in my estimation.

I couldn't let things go without a little tickle action. :D

I absolutely love this location, however, it turned out to have quite a number of ants and we found the longer we stayed in a particular spot the more ants gravitated towards us. Very much NOT cool. I still have war wounds.

Spencer couldn't let things go without getting a few shots of

me by myself so I obliged. . .for once.

The second shot here is completely unposed.

I was stretching out as I like to do and Spencer still shot.

I think I look kinda funny, but it's one of Spencer's favorites so I included it on here.

At this point, Liam was very much tired of looking out for and avoiding ants and was ready to be done with the impromptu photo session.

For family pictures of your own, contact me or visit online to see more family pictures I've shot. . .

Second Grade or BUST!

Another first day of school has come and gone. I am getting around to posting these a lot sooner than I have in the past. YAY for ME!

When I hunted up pictures from his first day at Kindergarten and First Grade, I realized that I need to get better at taking pictures consistently so as to get a better idea of his height. It looks like he didn't grow a bit from Kindergarten to First Grade. But then when you look at First to Second you see he's shot up. Hmmmm.

He wanted me to take a picture of his backpack since I added a dragon

AND a (poorly made by me) Darth Vader to his repertoire of backpack decorations from last year.

"Okay! Liam stand in front of this tree here real quick while I take your picture."

He's so obliging.

SO! What does a bored mama do while waiting in line for her son when

she has a camera in the car and it's raining?

DUH! Take pictures of raindrops. Sheesh, that's a no-brainer.

Liam was very proud that he went through his first day without pulling any sticks. As was I once I found out that it wasn't a freebie and that another kid had pulled a stick on his first day of school. (Quick explanation of sticks: Do something bad or disruptive and you pull a popsicle stick and put it in a pocket on the wall with your name on it. Needless to say, we try to avoid pulling sticks.)

As much as it was pouring rain at the school, as we drove home

we discovered that the rain had not yet reached our house and

it was nice and overcast. So. . .what do you do when you have nice

light and your boy is dressed handsomely for the first day of school?

Another duh! Take him in the backyard for some portraits of course!

THIS is Liam's smile for the camera face. Mind you, I never actually say, "smile for the camera" but he does it anyway. Much to my chagrin.

I'm a little in love with my son's lashes.

And he's in love with his prize from the teacher for not pulling any sticks.

"Okay! Now smile about your prize."

AHHHH! This is a much better smile.

"Okay, now don't smile but think pleasant thoughts."

Is it just me but do these images make him look a bit too old? I feel

like he has aged right in front of me when looking at these images.

Pretty much PERFECT!

So we're walking back to the house and I stop and say, "Wait, I want to get a few shots of you in your full handsome outfit." And this is what he gives me. Are you kidding? I did not teach him this.

My little model in the making.

He couldn't keep it up for too long without dissolving into giggles.

And here's how he ended his night. He was watching his dad play the Wii and

Spencer turned around to see him conked out in my arms. Say it with me. . .

"AWWWWWWW!!!"

For fun images of your children, please contact me or view more of my children's portraits online. . .

Gap Toothed Grin

For any of you that may follow me on Twitter, you may already know that the night my son lost his first tooth was very emotional for me.

It had been loose for some time and Spencer had already tried to pull it once to no avail. So that night, I'm working in the office totally unaware of anything but what I am doing when all of a sudden Liam comes running in saying:

"Mommy LOOK!"

So I look over and see him grinning this big gap toothed grin at me and my first gut reaction was to quickly turn away from him so that he wouldn't see me break down in tears for such a silly reason.

Poor little punkin' was so confused at my reaction and thought he had done something wrong. His little mind couldn't comprehend what a huge milestone that this was in his life and that I was crying over one more step he had just taken farther from being my baby and more to being my little boy.

It took me a while to be able to take the following pictures marking this milestone but he was proud to show off his loss.

Here he is poking his little tongue out through the gap as he does all day long.

Showing off the gap in all it's glory.

WHAT. A. FACE! Can we say HAM! That's where the ham in my name went. Right to this little nut.

Love him in all his silly glory.

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