The Motherhood Project | Kyra & Haven

Motherhood has inspired me to look at myself differently. I find myself struggling to keep an identity other than "Haven's mom" now.
I think women should be celebrated for all the roles that we play in our lives. I have started a personal photo project - photographing mamas in all walks of life (pregnant mamas all the way up to mamas promoted to grandma): The Motherhood Project.
They are simple, clean lifestyle portraits of women & children; in silhouette & against bare backdrops; stripped down images to celebrate our bodies after carrying our babies & to capture us as we are now (because I've learned we are all changing in the blink of an eye; especially our children). You'll never say you have "too many" photos of yourself & your children.

So now, I'm inviting mothers in all stages of life into my messy home for a relaxed, "take-your-shoes-off-step-over-that-pile-of-laundry-and-stay-a-while" lifestyle portrait session. We'll snap some pictures & then put our feet up & talk a while about our lives before babies, how our identities have changed, what we want our kids to remember most about their childhood & what we remember about our own.
Each session will be blogged with photos & snippets of our conversations. If you like to write, you can even write up your own essay/poem/story. This is meant to be a creative outlet not only for myself, but for all women who would like to participate.



Kyra & Haven (4 months)

I am a daughter, wife, mother ... an impostor: a girl, pretending to be a grown up.
I make a brilliant mix tape (...er, iPod playlist these days), I cannot iron any piece of clothing to save my life.
I am passionate about my family, photography & music.
This is what I remember of childhood: K-Mart jelly shoes, french toast for breakfast every morning, listening to Bad Company & AC/DC on cassette, fascination as I thumbed through my parents collection of vinyl records, the crickets & frogs singing in chorus out my window at night, my nose was always in a book & I loved writing. I could make the most mundane events into grand adventures.

When I gave birth to a newborn, I think I was a little shocked. It took me weeks to realize that when I'd imagined having a baby, I'd really envisioned a toddler. I'd let myself get caught up in imagining reading Fancy Nancy books, buying crayons & a Hello Kitty coloring book, & baking cookies with my daughter.
I loved my daughter before we met but it was a head-over-heels-love-at-first-sight moment when she was born. The problem with this was that we didn't know each other. It's the same concept as meeting anyone & feeling an immediate & intense passion - you have no idea why you feel that way but you want to find out more about them; you do so gradually & over a span of time. Imagine however, meeting someone & moving in with them the same day. It was like this with my daughter. We brought her home & then we spent the first month kind of giving sideways glances; sizing each other up to determine if we were a good match while still getting to know each other. She learned my flaws & short comings while tenderly torturing me with sleep deprivation & shrieking, followed by sweet cuddles & innocent heartwarming smiles. She was trying to break me with emotional POW tactics.
I was overwhelmed with these over-the-moon feelings of love & wonder, looking at this tiny human I had a hand in creating & carried in my womb for months. I was beside myself picturing her in pigtails when she gets older, randomly wondering if she'll be right or left handed, then distraught imagining someone breaking her heart & already planning out what advice I'll try to give her; some comforting, wise words that she'll hold on to & maybe give to her own child(ren) some day. The next minute I would be in tears, mourning "my old life". The enormity of the situation would over take me when I let it sink in that my thoughts would never be completely my own again. I spent a few days thinking of all the things I could no longer do & crying over how selfish it made me feel. I know now I had to mourn what I lost so that I could celebrate what I'd gained.
Four months in to motherhood, I believe I can speak for both Haven & myself that we have decided this mother/daughter relationship is going to work. We have a lot to work on but we have plenty of time to figure it all out. We're trying to cut each other some slack since she's still learning to be a baby & I'm learning how to be her mom.

I want Haven to remember her childhood in fleeting glimpses; a cozy messy home filled with a lot of love, a long tradition of dancing in the kitchen while cooking dinner, watching basketball games with her dad, catching fireflies in the summer, the freedom to be fascinated by anything & everything, the support & encouragement from her parents to create & pursue all that inspires her. I hope I am confident enough in my parenting to let Haven become her own person & allow her to make her own decisions without criticism from me when she becomes an adult. From my experience, parents who have done a good job will have kids who grow up to make a few bad decisions (we are, after all, learning) & learn from those mistakes. This early in motherhood, I forsee the inability to make the mistakes for her or prevent them from happening altogether as being the most heartbreaking. Whatever is to come, I want Haven to live a life she's proud of, to have the courage to make it her own & to be blessed with tons of infinite moments along the way.

Motherhood has taught me to be kind to myself. It is so easy to criticize as I fumble through figuring out what's best for Haven or allow myself to feel selfish when I need time for me. "Mom" is not a woman's only identity (as all-consuming as it becomes), never underestimate the importance of taking some time to yourself; however stolen & fleeting the time may seem.