Orange County photographer | Tara Whitney – Orange County's Leading Photographer. Family, Pregnancy, Maternity, infant, Newborn, Baby, engagement photography in Orange County, Los Angeles, San Diego

This picture makes me laugh and I don’t like it and I love it all at the same time.

We were on a walk on a local trail. A trail I found a few months ago and have visited several times since. There aren’t many areas locally with this type of tree cover and natural habitat. I LOVE it. We like to sneak off the trail and walk up the dried riverbed looking for treasure. It gets dark and spooky. They pretend to be in a pirate’s cove. We bring our iPod and play it in a portable dock/speaker. We coax Mckenna, we challenge each other, we try not to let the whining get to us.

June is one of the months in the year that I look forward to. I love that we are nearing the end of the school year and that summer and freedom and sleeping in are upon us.

Anna ended first grade. We made a dolphin diorama for school. She showed off everything she learned and made, walking us around her classroom with her proud shy little face. She started reading chapter books. I catch her in bed, on the couch, in the backseat. She likes books about dogs and horses and girls. It reminds me of me. She sings constantly – remembering words to songs that I can’t believe she can remember. Her favorite shirt is the blue one that says: Pony Rides 5 dollars. After a month in the pool, we have started calling her our brown berry – her olive skin just browns right up, no matter the 50 SPF sunblock, it laughs in my face. And she is just as scrumptious, as ripe, as juicy as a berry.

I love her.

Nate ended fourth grade. He is the tallest in his class. He towers over the rest of the group. Towers over the rest of his friends. I loved going into his classroom, he loved showing us everything he had created. He was giddy asking Jeff and I the questions that were tacked on the board – testing us – which one of us was not smarter than a 4th grader? He likes reading books about dragons. He likes to come home and put on his pajamas. It reminds me of me. His favorite spot on the couch is the corner, with his feet kicked up. I call him the accelerator – you can never hear any specific noise when the boys are rough housing, just grunts and giggles, but you can hear Nathan, he makes sure of it in order to get someone else in trouble. I am onto him but he doesn’t realize it yet. He broke his arm falling off his bike just a week before school was out. He picked blue for his cast. When you tease him he bows his head, but you can see the smile on his cheeks, the sweep of his long hair, his freckles.

I love him.

Drew ended seventh grade. I think I may have witnessed the last time he will get out of the car and say “Bye, Mom. I love you.” With a flip of his hair, shoving his phone in his pocket, hitching his backpack onto his shoulder. But I hope not. It never mattered how many other kids were on the sidewalk. I was always surprised by that. I always secretly loved that. He saved a years worth of English papers to burn in a bonfire at the start of summer. This was the first time his yearbook has been important. It reminds me of me. He carried it to school on the last few days, the only thing needed was that and a pen. He looked so big. It was filled with big sloppy girlie letters and declarations of awesomeness. I so wanted to read through every little bit, but they are his to savor. He picked out his own shoes for the first time. He didn’t need me to help him, or show him what I liked. He knew just what he wanted. Black low top Vans with turquoise laces.

I love him.

Mckenna ended seventh grade, and for me the ending was like a dragged out, bumpy landing with an abrupt stop. We bounced and jostled and gripped the arms of our seats through this year of school, until suddenly, the wheels touched down. Not soon enough. But with relief. She has had issues at school – spitting and cursing at teachers, bathroom accidents, showing a lot of stubbornness and willfulness. Acting out in ways we rarely see at home. She is unpredictable yes, but she is predictable in her unpredictability for us. All of this is so unlike her, I know it is her way of telling me she has had it. I am hoping that two months off can help us to see what needs to change for her. Because not a week out of school, her entire demeanor has changed. She is less stressed. She gets to go slowly through her routines. She wakes up at ten or eleven. She spends a lot of time listening to the music on her iPod – literally sitting in her room for hours, playing the same songs over and over, singing as loud as she can, rewinding to get the words right. It reminds me of me. She likes to run errands with me because she can be in charge of the music in the car. She begged for weeks to go shopping at the mall. I told her as soon as school was out. Two days into summer, I took her to the mall and let her buy whatever she wanted. She wanted long dresses and pajamas from Justice. A pretzel and a cheese on a stick. A new Backyardigans plush doll. Kool-Aid lipgloss and a red rose hair clip from Claire’s.

I love her.

I think this is my favorite time of the year. I revel in the lack of routine. The laziness. The open day. I love asking them what they want to do today, and then doing it. I love not having to shuttle them around to school. I love being home with them. I love that right now I can hear Mckenna belting out “Tomorrow” from the Annie soundtrack in her room. I love that Drew is off ice blocking with a group of friends. I love that Anna is tucked into my bed, watching James and the Giant Peach. I love that Nate is settled onto his favorite spot on the couch, playing his latest video game. We realized this weekend that we only have five more years with Drew until he heads off to college. Five years. Five. Years.

This is time for us.

Summer is ours.

xo

Tara

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** all images in this entry were taken by my friend Bonnie Berry.

We were so lucky in May to be able to have our family photos taken by my friend Bonnie. It was a lovely experience, that started out with Bonnie and I spending almost four hours in a booth at my favorite Mexican restaurant, talking and sipping margaritas, and letting time slip right by. We got an alarmed phone call from Jeff at almost 5pm wondering where we were…he was home manning the ship and waiting for us. We got home and got everyone ready as fast as we could. Mckenna spilled chili on the shirt I asked her to wear, Anna coudn’t find her bucket and shovel, I had to dry her hair a bit, Nathan had lost his rash guard, Kenna was losing it a bit, it was craziness. I had to let it roll though, that is my life, and Bonnie was snapping away. We got to the beach and it was windy. REALLY WINDY! Snappy cold kind of windy. I swear the wind is out to get me this year. We made the best of it. The kids changed into their suits and played in the water. Bonnie pulled each person that is dearest to me away, one by one, to spend some time with me and her camera. It is all a blur really, a fun, happy, love filled blur. It will be a memory I think of with fondness for the rest of my life. I am so grateful. Bonnie was nice enough to sneak me a few of the images to use for this post, I have yet to see the rest, and I can’t wait.

Oh and these photos of us. Of us. That is us. And I didn’t take them. I didn’t see it first. She did. The colors and our faces and Mckenna’s mischievous eyes and the sticker residue on the back of her hand, Anna and her favorite pony sitting on her favorite place (me), Drew leaning on me with major beach hair, Nate’s hands, Jeff in my favorite green hoodie, the one I want to snuggle in and that has his smell attached, the pink band aid on my finger. I have stared at these images for so many minutes at different times of my week that I might have spent hours. I can feel the beach on us. She captured a moment for me that I love so much, all of us just off the beach, sandy and salty, cold and in sweatshirts. I love us like this.

I have been fighting off writing. I haven’t been able to focus on it. I have been sitting here forcing myself to look at the month of May, and I don’t want to force this. I had to let myself off the hook for a few days and work on changing my attitude. I do want to do this. It is better not to force it. This is important to me. This is important to Jeff. If I keep this up, we will have a permanent keepsake and record of the year we had in 2010. It might not seem like much right now, but in ten years it will. The 43 year old me REALLY wants the 33 year old me to do this. And so with a happy heart I return, to talk about May.

Jeff and I got to see two of our personal favorites in concert this month. First was Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, for him, although I love that Roger Clyne quite a lot. He performed to a very small crowd, and he performed like it was Woodstock. He let the crowd choose his set list, so we got to hear some rarely played live songs. We got a deal on our own private room at The Coach House. We shared appetizers and drinks and talked and laughed at ourselves. We also might have gotten caught making out (twice) by our waitress. We were carefree and fun and silly and it was a magic night. Second was Ben Folds, for me, although he loves that Ben Folds quite a lot. We saw him at the House of Blues and after scoring stools in the balcony decided that yes, we are old now. And that is okay. But stools are much better for concerts. We no longer want to stand for hours in a crowd of sweaty drunk people. Stools are GREAT.

Drew started guitar lessons this month. He melted me on the drive to his first class by saying, “This is the first step in becoming who I want to be.” And then grinning at me, laughing, teasing, and saying, “Will you put that on your blog?” I said, “No, that one might be good enough for Twitter, though.” He has learned chords for several songs: Smoke on the Water, Happy Birthday, Stray Cat Strut. He named is guitar Bessie, after my iPod.

Our patience is tested daily with Mckenna. She struggles and we all struggle with her. It seems like in May, her behavior has kind of regressed. Or at least hit a point that we haven’t been in for a long time. She is extremely unpredictable when out in public, almost as much or more as a baby or toddler. She can’t stand to sit at the kitchen table and eat dinner with us, the noise we all make is too much for her. She puts her head down or screams unintelligibly in her frustration. She fights literally everything we say. In that respect she is a typical fourteen year old girl, I guess. But I can’t talk to her. I can’t listen to her. I don’t understand so I can’t help. I feel like she is pulling away from life, and I am scared, and I am not sure how to wake her up again and get her freed a little bit from the limits and compulsions of her own brain. I hope that Summer will bring some relief. An ease of schedules, and some time alone for her, less stress.

We spent time with our Uncle Mike, my parents, and Shane & Rachel one weekend. The boys played board games with their Uncle and we cooked bacon cheeseburgers on the grill. It is a wonderful thing to me that they are experiencing all that Uncle Mike has to give in the same way that I did. He taught me how to play games, he shared music with me, he took me places like Disneyland and Grateful Dead concerts and Stanford. He keyed in on the things we had in common. I love that they get to do the same kinds of things with him. For them, it is all about games and strategy and teaching them how. They were also able to experience the iPad for the first time because of him. They were obsessing over Google Earth and Plants VS Zombies. It might not be Jerry Garcia, but still.

Anna asked me one night to snuggle her, but I was dog tired and sandy from a beach shoot, so I asked if we could do it in the morning instead. That instead of me cuddling her, she could come to my bed when I woke up and cuddle me. She loved the idea and snuffled her way into the crook of my neck at 7:30 the next morning. We dozed for a little bit, definitely snuggled, and spent two hours whispering while Jeff snored next to us. She told me that she was so glad she didn’t have to sleep with Daddy every night, because he was so loud. I told her that I was used to it, and that I almost couldn’t sleep without it.

Nathan had “gold rush day” at school, and he got to dress up like a ranch hand. He wore a cowboy hat and a flannel shirt and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him all day. The look suited him so well, it was quite a surprise! That gold hair flipping out from the cowboy hat. Sigh. He is such a soft hearted little boy, quiet and watchful, he keeps everything very close to his chest. I love to surprise him with something I say just to watch his face light up. He is also sarcastic and sharp witted, and I have to keep myself from squelching that natural tendency of his, and instead teach him to use it for good. His teeth are falling out left and right. He told me, “Mom, I HATE my mouth right now.” He can hardly eat with all the loose teeth. But he just made $10 off the tooth fairy, so that should help. (The tooth fairy only had $10′s and $20′s. Score one for the kids.)

We hiked.

We played in parks.

We watched TV marathons all piled in the big bed.

We worked, cooked, got up early, got up late, opened bags of chips, toasted bread, baked cookies, shared cookies with neighbors, brushed our teeth, fought, made up, read, played video games, loved, took baths, swam for hours in the pool, cried on the phone, got mad at someone, got hurt at someone, went to the grocery store, went to Target, went to the mall, went to the post office, went out to lunch, had babysitters, felt our hearts burst, got the mail, got off the bus, sliced tomatoes, laughed so hard our faces hurt, lost a tooth, ate a lot of guacamole, kissed, plucked eyebrows, sent emails, got emails, took pictures, went to school, ate popsicles, rode bikes, fell down, needed band aids,  listened to music, drove on the freeway, waited in traffic, danced, got drive-thru, took vitamins, put our feet up, cleaned a closet, put gas in the car, played games on the iPhone in bed, watched the finale of LOST, helped with homework, made a diorama, painted waves on cardboard, wanted to go on vacation, wanted to throw up our hands, got lunch with friends, paid for parking, broke our ice machine, bought an ice cream machine, did laundry, stepped around messes, and lived.

It isn’t easy. But I’m glad I’m here.

xo

Tara

PS: As always, if you joined in, please feel free to leave a link and/or comment.

This month I had two family snapshots to choose from! They both happened naturally, with no real effort on my part. I couldn’t decide which one to use, so I am using both.

The image of us in the tent was taken on our first family camping trip at San Elijo state beach. A friend of Jeff’s had a spot overlooking the beach that he wasn’t going to be able to use, so he offered it to us. We packed and threw everything together in just about a week. It was last minute and quite the adventure for us. A lot of work, but a good memory. On our last morning, just before we packed up, I asked everyone to pile on the air mattress for this shot. I can still feel the sticky morning warmth of the inside of the tent, and smell the campfire.

The other image of us was taken on the night of Drew and Mckenna’s musical: Willy Wonka Jr. They had just come off stage, and our family was gathered around in support. It was such a wonderful night for all of us. Pride and love for our talented performers oozing from our pores. Before the show started, I walked Mckenna into the backstage area to help with hair and make-up, and several of the girls walked up to us to say hello. Two or three of them separately said, “You’re Mckenna’s mom? She looks so much like you!” And because Kenna has always had her own look, it made me smile inside so much. Thrilled me. Gave me shivers in a good way. My mom also mentioned how much Mckenna looked like me with her hair pulled back the way it was for the show. I can picture the 7th grade photo she was thinking of and will have to dig it out to compare.

Drew NAILED his performance of Willy Wonka. I was not surprised, but I was very happy for him. When rehearsals started, I offered him some advice. I told him to act his face off, with no hesitation. That it is the people that hold back that tend to draw more attention to themselves because people feel uncomfortable and embarrassed for them. I told him to embody Will Ferrel (he wants to be Will Ferrell) – and to visualize him pushing the limits and making people react. He loved that and latched onto it immediately. Whenever we would talk about it, I would ask him if he was becoming Will Ferrell, and that would always get a grin out of my boy.

If you look closely in the camping photo, you can see that Mckenna has acquired a second Uniqua. They go everywhere with her. Everywhere. They were, in fact, in my purse during the play which is why she is not pictured with them in the second shot.

Drew got his cast off. The whole experience was a piece of cake for him thank goodness.

Anna is still working on learning to ride a two wheeler, but has a lot of fear. She prefers her scooter.

The entire month of April was dedicated to a major clean out of our house that was a very long time coming. Every spare moment during the week, and all day on the weekends. We have lived in a lot of clutter for a very long time because I simply couldn’t handle the decisions I would need to make regarding whether we kept or purged the items. There were things shoved into closets that I haven’t thought about in years. I felt completely overwhelmed and stressed out by all the STUFF I DON’T NEED. I finally felt ‘enough is enough’ and got to work. We decided we would start upstairs, moving everything we didn’t want to the garage. We would move through the house, and then end in the garage with a complete purge.

We started with the kid’s bedrooms. Mckenna and the boys actually traded spaces. She was always in their room because she genuinely loved the space. She loves the sound of the bathroom fan that you can hear in there. The boys needed more wall space and a better room configuration. Now our Jack and Jill bedrooms have the girls connected, and the boys have their own separate space. After the kid’s bedrooms were complete, I moved to my office, the two upstairs bathrooms, the two upstairs linen closets, and our bedroom. My next plan of attack is to complete the kitchen, the downstairs art closet, and then move into the garage. When I do move into the garage, I might have to send up smoke signals to get help finding my way back.

I feel such a sense of peace in my home again. I can sit upstairs in a clean and organized office. I know where things are. I know where things belong. The kids actually have room in their dresser drawers for clothes. Ample room. Their closets and bookshelves have been stripped of everything except for things they use or find to be really special. The bathroom cabinets are nearly empty, and so organized I could marry them. I was able to actually USE all of the baskets, jars, and miscellaneous other containers I collect for organization and storage.

I have to say it again: I feel such a sense of peace in my home.

We had our first BBQ dinner of the summer season this month. It is always so nice to fire up the grill after winter and spring. Windows open, music playing, Jeff cracks open a beer for us to share, the kids stand around tantalized by the smell of cooking. All of us LOVE to eat BBQ and we typically plan 2-3 meals around it during the week all summer long. Our favorite dinner this month was definitely steak, cheese bread, caesar salad, vegetable, and a baked potato.

The kids met some new children in our neighborhood. And finally, finally, finally, they seem to be children that really get along with mine. They like the same things. They have been spending so much more time outside than usual. Hearing about their antics and activities reminds me of how things “used to be” when I was a kid. When we would leave in the morning and not come home until the streetlights came on. I love hearing their laughter and fun wafting through our open windows. I love knowing they are happy and outside.

Nathan has a new interest in basketball, and wants to sign up for some type of coaching.

Anna and Ivy spent several hours this month on iChat, drawing pictures together and talking about what they will do when the Falconbridge’s return to America. Even Yindi gets in on the action. It brings me overwhelming joy to listen in on their conversations. One of my favorite interactions:
Ivy: Anna, can you read?
Anna: Yes.
Ivy: Do you know that I don’t know how to read yet because I go to a different kind of school?
Anna: Yes, I know that.
Ivy: Some of my friends know how to read but I don’t yet. But I can knit and play the recorder and they can’t.
Anna: It’s okay Ivy, I will help you read and you can help me knit.
(INSERT MELTING HEART HERE.)

Very early one weekend morning I stumbled blearily out of my room and walked over to the office. I heard voices coming from the boys’ room so I poked my head in to say good morning. I was surprised they were already awake. I saw Drew and Anna, both sitting cross legged on his bed. Both with a deck of cards. He was quietly teaching her how to shuffle as Nate snored away in his own bed next to them.

Nathan learned how to make a pot of coffee for an assignment at school that was focused on public speaking. He had to learn the steps of something, and teach them to his class. He chose “How To Make Coffee”. Since, he has loved being the whitney kitchen barista, and loves making me a cup on weekend mornings. (The only time I allow myself to drink coffee, for the most part. I know I will get dependent quickly, so I limit my intake.)

The other night as I was making dinner, it hit me hard that I am now in the phase of mothering that I always dreamed about when I was at home with three children under the age of three. The phase where there is some independence. The phase that is way way way past diapers and potty training and temper tantrums in the grocery store. The phase where my middle school aged son helps my elementary aged daughter with her math homework while I make dinner. It is a brave new world here in this phase. I spent ten plus years with toddlers and babies. The entire decade of my 20′s, and some of my 30′s. I still get shocked with how fast time is passing. I still get shocked at how big they are. How adult they are becoming. Yet I feel like I am in my motherhood prime. I ache to go back in time and hold them as newborns again. To smell their toddler necks and experience their toddler voices. But I was exhausted or drained or depressed for most of that time, if I am going to be perfectly honest. I think I had them too fast, I was stretched too thin. I wouldn’t go back and change a thing, but that is the truth of the matter. I loved them just as fiercely then as I do now…but it was a harder time for me personally as a mother.

At the same time, it is such a huge huge part of my identity – being the mother of four young children. And now that I am no longer that, my identity is shifting and I haven’t quite caught up. I still feel a part of that “group”. The one at the park after naptime. The one with goldfish crackers and sippy cups falling out of the stroller. The one walking a toddler down the hall to avoid a tantrum at the post office. And it is SO BIZARRE that I am just not there anymore. I miss it, even knowing how hard it was for me.

I did my best, and I think my best was enough. I hope it was. If who they are today is any indication, it was enough. Thankfully, gratefully. I can now REALLY see how tender and special that millisecond of time was, and it makes me want to hold onto this time all the more, because I know our next phase is speeding down the runway, arriving at the gate soon as a house full of teenagers. And then, lickity split, take off into a life of their own.

So here I am, looking back on a lot of memories with a lot of fondness. Recalling who they were then and feeling very full in all that we have experienced together.

Here I am, learning about who they are now and leading them down the best path that I can. Loving who they are becoming.

Here I am, looking forward into the future, with great hopes regarding our safety and health, and a lot of excitement over what is to come.

xo,

Tara

PS: As always, if you joined in, leave a link in the comment section.