walking a mile in someone's shoes
There's a reason that's a saying. I'm going to be 100% honest here. Before I became a mother in 2014, I had hundreds of Mothers in my life. Ones I was related to, some friends, but mostly photography clients. When you are childless and only have dogs for the first 12 years of your marriage, you maybe get a little 'written off' by parents as fun-loving people that love to hang out with you because you are free as a bird and don't need a sitter but are clueless when it comes to the nitty gritty roller coaster of emotions when you have kids. As parents you need to be flexible, be patient, and put family first.
None of these 3 things EVER resonated with me until Violet came along.
a letter of APOLOGY to all my mom clients prior to 2014
Dear Mom photography clients of pre-mom Stacy,
I am so so sorry for every time I rolled my eyes behind your back when you were late because ... the kids.
I am so so sorry for every time I bitched to Ryan about how you yelled at your kids for not listening to me during our session.
And mostly I'm sorry for not telling you you're doing a GREAT job each and every single day for the sacrifice of your time and energy into raising beautiful and wonderful children.
And now some good news! Present-day Stacy has a new found perspective on all it takes to prepare the family for a shoot. Parenting is no joke and I give you permission and grace to just do you. I promise to make your shoots easy and proud of your family. I promise to give you beautiful images to remember your sweet babies just as they are. Right now. In all their glory.
So to sum up, I'm here for you and I totally get it now! The clouds have lifted and I see how hard you're working.
Sincerely,
Stacy, Violet's mom
On raising my own daughter
Violet is now 8 (going on 18). She is artistic (WIN!), thoughtful, bright, and loves to be around people. Is she a mini-me? I think it's highly possible. Everyday I'm in awe of how she leaves a trail of little things everywhere (clothes, beads, wrappers). I'm highly annoyed by this because our house is relatively small and if even one thing is out of place it drives me bananas. But I need to remind myself that she is 8. We have 12 more summers with this precious human and we need to count our blessings that God gave us this awesome gift. I love being her mom. I'm so blessed.