You Should Be In the Picture Too, Mom

mom and daughter

My aunt just posted one of the only photos she has of just her and her mom, my grandma, to Facebook. The picture was from the summer of 1976. My aunt is 10, my grandma is 50. They are standing in front of a rocky shoreline at sunset, my grandma’s arm wrapped tightly around her shoulder, my aunt’s head snuggled into her embrace. It’s one of the only pictures of her and her mom because she was the eighth in a family of nine kids. The photo has the aged, yellow glow of an Instagram filter, warmly reminding my aunt of that hug from her mom forty-some years ago.

But it is not 1976. Kids like mine will have countless photos from their childhood. How will they curate their own photos when so much has been documented of their little lives?

Read the full story on Her View From Home.

Grandma and Aunt

Mantra for the New Mom of Two

Mantra for the New Mom of Two - Don't Wish it Away

A coworker once told me it takes six months to get the hang of a new job. I don’t know whether she based that time frame on any scientific studies, but it sounded about right to me. As I prepared for the birth of my second child, I anticipated some transition time as I took on my new role as a mother of two.

My first day began as I happily went into labor a few days before my scheduled c-section. Compared to my water-breaking-five-weeks-early emergency birth of my first child, the birth of Baby Number Two was blissfully normal. She came into the world screaming and healthy. I kept waiting for the emotional wave of postpartum to wash over me like it had with my first, but when week one passed without incident, I was optimistic.

Then came week two of my new gig. Screaming turned out to be the norm. As I settled into sleep deprivation, I sent a bleary-eyed text to a friend who’d had a baby two months prior. I asked her to remind me how long it would be before things got easier. When she texted back “Yeah that first month is tough,” I thought “Month?! How am I going to survive the week?”