moments

It's possible you may see me participating in the This Moment Friday photo meme, started by SouleMama years ago. This represents kind of a big turnaround for me.

For a long time I kind of rolled my eyes at the Moments. For one thing, my photography has always been about making pictures that are beautiful but not pretty. For another, I thought those moments were contributing to women --  mothers, in particular -- feeling inadequate if they didn't have pretty moments.  I thought they must be, if not lies, at least just a tiny moment's break in the chaos that didn't reflect the overall experience.

Now that I've read pretty much all of SouleMama's archive, I think she uses those moments in an aspirational way. Posting a photo of a nice moment is kind of a practice of mindfulness, a gesture of gratitude. I can get behind that. (Full disclosure: I'm actually pretty inspired by her - the unschooling, the small farm.)

Something big happened when I went back to work and my husband discovered all the joys of being at home with kids full-time. I discovered that life can actually be largely peaceful. Not because I'm away from my kids for eight hours a day (that part is the hardest) but because my husband is doing so much more around the house. Our housework load feels more equal.

I have a tendency to take things over, and when I was home full-time he had no space to figure out all the stuff I spent my days figuring out. It wasn't totally his fault and he has stepped up so admirably in the last nine months (has it really been nine months?!?).

Now, when we're getting ready to go somewhere, my husband just knows what to do to get the kids ready. Before, if I wanted his help to gather their shoes and coats and some bags for groceries and diapers and wipes and sunscreens and hats and snacks and drinks, etc. etc. I had to direct my husband on every single detail. Not we can both do some of that work and it's so much less hectic getting out the door (when there's two of us at least, mostly).

I have discovered how lovely life with kids can be when you have a fully engaged partner. Life is still a struggle and we still have lots of chaos, but so much less than before. Life just doesn't feel as hard as it did. (I should really let my husband comment here, since he now deals with so much more of that daily chaos than I do, but he's gone to bed.)

I have also been trying to practice gratitude, even in the struggles. And it's doing good things for me. So with those various changes, life doesn't feel so hard and there are so many more dreamy moments. And I want to capture some of them and share them. Because that's why we're doing all this… for the dreamy moments.

So you've been warned… don't be surprised if you see some Moments in this space.