The Motherhood Project | Terra & Lyndon

Terra | (in no particular order) world traveler (I remember a story she told of rowing across a body of water in a canoe with a case of beer but I don't remember which continent this was on), daughter, Disney Princess (literally, she was employed as a Princess at Disney World), sister, college graduate, teacher & new mom.
She has the kindest, most innocent voice - perfect for soothing a child & it makes her jokes even funnier to hear them come out in such a sweet voice.

Terra & her high school sweetheart had reconnected long distance, seeing each other while she was finishing school for her teaching degree (& she'd just been accepted into a program to teach in Japan), when they received a major surprise: they were going to be parents. As much of a free spirit as Terra is, there is a traditional gal lurking in there & she was uncomfortable telling people she was pregnant & unmarried. "It wasn't noticeable for a while, but around 6 or 7 months I started to show."
One of her students, a little girl, told her in a hushed voice: "My mom says people can get chubby if they eat too many cookies. Don't eat too many, Miss Black."

"It was like pregnancy didn't really sink in for me. When I had Lyndon, I spent a long time staring at him & thinking, 'Wow, there really was a baby in there.'"
I asked Terra if she felt it didn't sink in because she didn't share the information with everyone right away. She nodded thoughtfully & I could tell from our talk that she worried about her pregnancy raising questions in her young students about marriage & babies coinciding. She tilted her head & with a slightly apologetic smile she said, "I worried about disappointing my parents." (No need for an apologetic smile, I am 27 years old & still worry about disappointing my parents sometimes!)

While teaching in Japan is on hold for now, Terra & her fiancee are raising Lyndon (named after her grandfather & affectionately nicknamed Lindy) close to family & she tends to share a lot of the same feelings I have about being a new mom.

"Forget your expectations," she says, "expectations for pregnancy, birth, people's reactions, motherhood, what you expect your baby to be like. Everything. Nothing is how you expect it to be. If you have no expectations it's easier to cope."

When asked her best piece of advice for new moms, she was quick to reply with: "Always smile at your baby. They will grow up thinking the world is a happy place with people who are glad to see them. Even if your day is terrible and you're ready to scream, still smile at your baby every time [they] look at you."

Terra wants her son to remember a childhood like the one she had: "I want Lindy to remember me as a carefree happy mom who is a total free spirit and full of surprises. My mom was like that. She picked my brother and I up from school one day and asked us if we could go anywhere in the world where would we go? Naturally, we chose Disney. And we went! Straight from the parking lot of school - it was awesome! I want his childhood to be magical and fun. I watched a mom at the grocery store once yelling at her son to hurry up [because] he was fascinated by the automatic doors. If that were my child, and it will be one day, I will take the time to stand with him and watch that door and explain how it works and foster the sense of wonder in him for the world around him."