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A portrait of my child once a week, every week for a year. Seen through my eyes.

 Alex: Sprinkles fairy dust over the garden to help it grow (actually to keep the worms from eating everything).

Daisy

This beautiful baby is Daisy. Those cute pups are her brothers. They are so good with kids, best I have ever seen.

Zucchini Pasta

I recently went to a cooking class with my Aunt Kim and one of my favorite items we learned about was zucchini spaghetti. What is zucchini spaghetti you might ask? Well it is an awesome and healthy alternative to pasta. Pretty much is exactly as it sounds.

You will need a handy dandy GEFU to string your zucchini. I would use about 3-4 medium sized zucchinis. Heat skillet on stove to med/high heat, add a little oil (pick your favorite olive, coconut, grape seed), once oil is hot then add the zucchini pasta. Toss it constantly for about 2 minutes until zucchini is tender (it will still have a little crunch). I added a little pesto to mine but I am excited to try other sauce variations as well. Et voila!

I'm a mother f**king MOM

I am not a writer. I am not a critic. I have this blog for myself and hopefully one day for my daughter to look back on it, and if a few people stop by and like what they see so be it.

I recently read this post and felt I needed to re-share because well 1) I could not write like this (might think like it but never would I be able to put it down on paper...I mean the computer) and 2) It really stuck to me. Thanks to this twenty something nothing for the words I could not express myself but totally understand...

"I'm not daft to the inescapable reality that my life has been altered. My alarm clock is now a pair of small albeit remarkably healthy lungs and my idea of a vacation is an uninterrupted shower. Instead of holding a triple shot venti and half a pack of cigarettes when walking out the door, I'm carrying an oversized purse full of diapers and a carseat that bangs against my left thigh every time I take a labored step. My Friday nights revolve around a tiny man who sucks on my nipples, drinks himself to sleep and throws up occasionally and while that sounds a lot like my college evenings, that tiny man isn't 25 and emotionally unavailable. 

Sure, things are different. However, that instantaneous, fundamental change everyone told me I'd experience the moment I became, gulp, a mom? Yeah, I'm still waiting.

My world hasn’t cataclysmically shifted, leaving the pathetically broken pieces of my personal, professional and sometimes whimsical goals behind. My writing career is still my first child and my novel is still a labor of love and the unrealistic intention of spending an entire summer naked on a beach in Greece is still, well, an unrealistic intention. My son’s now overwhelming importance hasn’t negated the other important aspects of my life. He is my focus, but he is not my only focus.

My vocabulary hasn’t been restricted for fear his impressionable brain may be tarnished. My “fucks” haven’t turned into “fricks” and my “shits” haven’t turned into “shoots”. He’ll undoubtedly be familiar with a wide variety of curse words at what many will consider an inappropriate age. He’ll also know they aren’t meant for his mouth to repeat. The world won’t censor itself for him so he’ll be taught right from wrong, not that wrong doesn’t exist.

My musical preference hasn’t gave way to classical or choral in the hopes my child will become a remarkable prodigy of cancer-curing proportions. I mean, come on. He shits himself multiple times a day. Who are we kidding? He falls asleep to heavy riffs and epic breakdowns and if that means he might have to try a little harder in 10th grade geometry class, well, I have no doubt he will try harder.

And while many will assume I am a selfish mother incapable of self-sacrificing for the sake of my child, I won’t care. Because the instantaneous, fundamental change everyone told me I’d experience the moment I became a mom wasn’t a forewarning of sacrifice. It was an assumption of loss.

So many expect you to lose parts of yourself in order to gain others. So many believe the sacrifices a mother makes is synonymous with a gratuitous lobotomy. So many regard a “good mother” as an unfulfilled entity, void of those pesky human characteristics like desire and need. If you continue to, oh, I dunno, pursue your career or care about football or drink neat, three finger whiskies, you’ll face unapologetic assumptions of abandonment and selfishness.

Sadly, mothers are encouraged, nay expected, to cast aside their former personalities in exchange for diaper bags and spit up cloths.

Which makes my previously debilitating fear of children all the more understandable. I was intensely adamant my future would be a childless one, however I now realize it wasn’t my son I didn’t want, it was this preconceived notion of parenthood shoved down every twentysomething’s throat. This inescapable nomenclature of “mom” that convinced me I would lose the parts of myself I loved in order to love what will now always be the best part of myself. I was afraid of becoming a robotic caregiver, subjected to an instantaneous, fundamental change that would rob me of any identity other than “mother”.

Thankfully, I’m still waiting.

Because my life has been inescapably altered.  But I haven’t. I have grown, not regressed. I have added, not subtracted. And I have learned, in the short month of exploring this new part of myself labeled "mom", that the best kind of mother…is the mother who is true to herself. "

Alex just know that every day I thank the heavens for having brought you to me. I love you so much baby girl.

My last model days...

 My mentor and friend Ijfke took some photos of me before I left Hawaii. She is pretty awesome!
More of her awesomeness can be found here.

36/52

A portrait of my child once a week, every week for a year. Seen through my eyes.

 Alex: Sunny days and peek-a-boo.

Un-natural Lighting

Lets be honest, I was never trained at all in photography and when there is bad lighting, well, I am a horrible photographer. During my last weeks in Hawaii my friend and fellow model turned photographer Ijfke was showing me the ropes on how to use lighting (i.e. flashes). I rented some really cool lights. I rent from Hawaii Photo Rental, they are so amazing and I wish I had them out here in San Diego! I wanted to try something totally different from what I normally shoot so Ijfke suggested I try using a beauty dish (for beauty portraits). I used a Profoto Pro B-4 1000 Air Kit for lighting, Profoto White Softlight Reflector(beauty dish), c stand, and my 50mm 1.4 lens. Here are some of the finished products:

the BEST cornbread you will EVER make

Since fall is just around the corner I thought I would share an amazing cornbread recipe that my Baba (grandma) gave my mom and my mom gave me. It is quick and simple to put together and your mouth (and family) will be so happy you tried it!

I highly recommend doubling this anytime you make it:

1/2 cup cottage cheese

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup corn meal

1/4 stick of butter

1/4 cup sour cream

Cream cottage cheese, sugar, and eggs together. Add and mix together rest of ingredients.

Bake 375° for 30 minutes. That simple.

 You can see the cottage cheese kernels^ they make it extra moist and delicious! I served mine with BBQ chicken and mashed cauliflower. Delicious!

Alex approved! She made sure to get it in her hair, all over her face, on the floor, and is somehow sitting in a pile of it just to show how much she loves it.

Penelope

I recently had the pleasure to do a newborn session of an old high school buddy. Her daughter's name is Penelope Blue. I like the way they turned out and hope you do too!

35/52

A portrait of my child once a week, every week for a year. Seen through my eyes.

 Alex: The first story time that she actually participated and paid attention (had to be documented!).

34/52

A portrait of my child once a week, every week for a year. Seen through my eyes.

 Alex: Loves swimming class, grapes, and her new rain boots.