I’m standing here in my proverbial underwear.  I’ve had quite a few people ask me how I am recently, so I thought I’d just put it out there.

I’m here.

Sometimes that’s the accomplishment for the day.  I lost my mom 11 months ago to colon cancer.  It has been a tumultuous year full of highs and lows.  I strive to focus on the positive, so I’ll list those first.  We welcomed Bodie into our family, and he is an absolute dream of a baby.  My photography business has grown beautifully and is on a great path.  My husband’s business is doing well.  Carter is healthy, strong, and learning so much day by day.  Just watching him become a “kid” and not a “toddler” is fascinating.

But, grieving has been the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced.  I know there are many people that truly care how I’m doing.  But, it’s just easier to say “fine” when someone asks.  Grieving is so complex and so all encompassing, that I truly believe that if you haven’t experienced it first hand, you can try to sympathize, but it’s impossible to wrap your brain around the depths of grief.  11 months out and I am still struggling.  I am having great weeks now.  It used to be I had good days and bad days.  Now, it’s stretching, and I have longer good stretches.  But, this past week knocked me down again.

I am a person who remembers numbers and dates.  I remember my 6th grade locker combination (16-6-32, by the way).  I know my childhood phone number.  I can still recite the address I lived at when I was 5 years old.  Every July 2nd I think “this is the day I met Richie”.  Every January 17th I remember that “this was the day I found out I was pregnant with Carter”.  So, this week a year ago was when our world turned upside down and we found out that mom was not a candidate for the clinical trial and that she only had 2-4 months.  She made it 1 month.  Robbed.  I felt (and feel) robbed.

When she first met with her oncologist at Moffitt Cancer Center she said “the average life expectancy of someone with your disease is 2.5 years”.  Carter was in my lap.  He was 7 months old.  I wept.  That only got him to 3 years old.  My mom literally prayed that baby into my life.  And she was only going to know him until 3?  And then, only until he was 2?  She died 2 weeks before he turned 2.  We were robbed.  So, now as I think of his 3rd birthday party preparations, my mind can’t help but jump to “she was supposed to see this”.

The good news is that she has the best seat in the house now.  But, not getting to hear her laughter at Carter is literally heartbreaking.  Carter (and Bodie) are so blessed to have such loving grandparents that want to be so involved.  But, there’s a hole.  A 5′ 2″ brunette, green eyed, song bird hole.

My mom was so proud of my photography.  She was extremely supportive of me as I first started out.  She was my babysitter for my first shoots that I did for free.  She wanted to see each and every gallery I put together.  She ran a wildly successful real estate business (even when other great agents were having to wait tables while the economy crashed) and so her business advice was always spot on.

I’ll be honest.  My first shoots back after she passed were near impossible for me emotionally.  It felt empty and wrong to proceed without her.  I cried over a chat with a dear friend one night.  I needed to edit a session, and couldn’t.  I just couldn’t do it.  She (my friend) told me to take her with me.  I did.  And it felt good.

For any blog readers that may have lost someone?  My heart pours out to you.  For those of you concerned about me?  I love you for that.  You are awesome.  I can’t express my gratitude enough to my friends and family that are so sweet and supportive of me while I try to figure out how to walk forward without her.  I could NOT have made it through this year without my wonderful loving and patient friends and family.  There are certain friends that have been my crutch on days where I barely made it through the day.  My wonderful husband, Richie, is the leader of that pack.

Don’t worry.  Next week I’ll have a good week.  And I keep shooting.  I want to.  I love to.  I do it in honor of my mom.  At every shoot I feel like she’s with me.  I was paralyzed at the thought of doing it without her, so I won’t.  My mom had the most contagious smile and laugh.  Oh that laugh.  You could hear it a hundred yards away.  But, you definitely knew when she was happy.  I want that for my clients.  I want that for my business.  I want to capture that extraordinary love.  The extraordinary love of a mother and newborn, of a whole family, between siblings, of a cheerful 6 month old.

So, thank you for asking about me.  I’m doing better.  I’m just learning how to live without her physical presence, and trying to learn to feel her spirit and find happiness in that.  I have a wonderful little family.  I have an incredibly supportive (and tolerant) husband.  I have an adorable almost 3 year old son.  I have a precious 5 month old that will laugh at anything.  Blessings follow me everywhere!

And because it wouldn’t be a post on my blog without photos… I was just finishing up Margaret’s gallery, and these 2 images really make me smile… I hope they bring a smile to your face too.  See?  Love.  It’s what it’s ALL about.

There are a lot of firsts happening this time of year.  First back pack, first lunch box, first day at school, first ride on a bus…  The Dunlaps are no exception.  Bodie had his first solid food and Carter had his first dance class.  I should not these pics are taken with my 5 year old point and shoot.  I’m sure the other photographers that follow my blog can relate, but when you’re juggling 2 kids, it’s hard to juggle the “big” camera as well.

Up first is Bodie.  He’s 5 months old now and showing signs of being ready, so we started solids on Friday!  We started with avocados.  What’s funny is neither Richie nor I like avocados.  Blech.  But, they are nutritionally dense and contain good fats, so I tried to my best to control my gag reflex.   This is a recent snapshot with my “big” camera of the handsome man.

But, when confronted with his first dose of “obnoxious on board flash” this is what happened.

Prior to this above photo, he’d been smiling and laughing.  …and THIS, my friends, is why I hate on board flash.  Well, there are many reasons, but this is just one of them.  Thanks to the shutter lag, the adorable smiling and laughing was replace by the deer in the headlights look.  Nice, eh?

Anywho.  Onto the solids. He did great.  No tongue thrust issues, and did really well!  I don’t think avocados are a fave, but he didn’t cry and spit them out either.  Here he is trying his first bite.  Notice the same “oh crap that flash is bright” look.  Ahh… love it.

And after.  A pretty happy boy!  Great job, Bodie!!

Up next is Carter.  He had his first dance class yesterday.  As many of you know, I am a ballet teacher as well.  This is my 17th year teaching.  I teach at Stage Door Studios.  There just happens to be a class for 3 year olds the hour before I start teaching on Mondays.  Perfect.  It’s a class that is half dance and half tumbling.  This is also Carter’s first foray into a classroom setting.  It’s precisely why he’s in it. I want him to learn to listen to other adults, take turns, interact, and some basic movement for coordination.  This class was such a little blessing!  We talked the whole way to the studio on being a good listener, following directions, and the fun he was going to have.  He asked at every stoplight if we were at “dance cass” (no L) yet.

Miss Jill Lynch (director of Stage Door) teaches the class.  She’s got about as much experience teaching as I do.  She has two pristinely dressed assistants with their hair neatly back in a bun.  Ready to lead the class and demonstrate to the best of their ability too.

We arrive at the studio just in time to walk into class.  It was my goal to be there about 10 minutes early, but thanks to the crazy rain yesterday, we were a bit delayed in our travels.  We walked in just as Miss Jill was cheerfully leading the students back to class.  I quickly ripped Carter’s shoes and sock off, ushered him past the waiting room full of younger siblings, parents and there paraphernalia back to his classroom.  I said “have fun in dance class” and he started to well up with tears.  I gave him a reassuring hug and closed the door.  The crying started.  Great.  First day and the ballet teacher’s kid is the crier.   He stopped the crying almost immediately and went to hang out in the back of the room when the rest of the class was in their “hello circle” to greet each other.  No problem, some kids need some time to adapt.  Jill (a very wise woman) installed a security like camera and has the feed on a large flat screen tv in the lobby.  She knows if she didn’t she’d have at least a dozen parents peering in through the small sliver of a window in the door.  Well, that’s what the parents have done for the past 2 years anyway.

Next, comes time to go across the floor.  The assistants demonstrated how they would do their chassee’s (like gallops) across the floor.  Not Carter.  He stood firmly attached to the back of the room.  He wasn’t to be shaken.  Maybe stubbornness is a trait I can later put on his CV?  I’m hoping so, because his is legendary.   Then the kids started their battements (like big kicks).  This is when it got good.  Carter darted from the back of the room to the front and then back again.  Oy.  He wasn’t just not participating, he was being a distraction.  A sweet assistant went over to talk to him.  Heh.  Good luck, dearie.  But, he didn’t run again, so I guess what they did worked.

Jill breaks out the stars and places them on the floor (these are placemarkers on the floor for the kids to stand on).  When they stand on their star they get a scarf to begin the next exercise.  Not my kid.  He picks up his star and throws it frisbee style “Wheeee” towards the back of the room ::slaps forehead in a Homer Simpson like way:: DOH!  Jill begins the exercise and they are practicing with the scarves all the while learning lessons about dancing lightly.  Yeah.  Not my kid.  He’s using his star instead.  Oops.

Next, he refused to stretch with his blue teddy bear.  Nope.  His teddy sat there unaccompanied.  At this point Richie has arrived and is laughing with me.  Ahhh, parenthood.

Then it comes time for beanbags.  This has Carter’s interest peaked.  Every kid scurries to their star and stands nicely and Jill places a beanbag on their head to see if they can balance it (for fun of course).  Carter rushes to Miss Jill and she mimes toward the star.  He needs to stand on his star to get his beanbag.   He quickly does so and she places it on his head.  (patience of Job she has, I tell ya)  They begin the exercise having fun on all the places they can balance their bean bag.  Carter begins dancing… FINALLY!!  30 minutes into the class, but he’s dancing!  She balances it on her foot and raises her foot up effortlessly, and Carter attempts to mimic.  He places it on his foot, only to lift it and to fling it across the room.  Oops.  Not exactly the desired effect we were going for there, champ.

They began tumbling, and I think this class was more a lesson in patience for Miss Jill and her assistants than anything.

At the end of the class, I asked Jill to pose with Carter for a quick snapshot.  Again, with the point and shoot.  Notice Carter’s expression that says “you didn’t notice I didn’t really participate, did you?”.  That Jill is quickly on her way to being canonized a saint.

I was working on some of Bodie’s newborn photos tonight and found these. I honestly forgot I took them. Bodie’s first few days/weeks were a blur for me. I had a much harder (physical) recovery with him. I attempted a few small newborn shoots with him. It was physically too hard on me, but I made myself do it because I knew I wanted them. Those sessions physically wiped me out. I should’ve hired someone to do it, but I’m a *wee* bit stubborn. (ok family, stop laughing now) Emotionally it was an even harder time. Richie was only able to take one afternoon off of work, and in that afternoon he had food poisoning and literally spent it curled up on the bathroom floor. I wish I was exaggerating. I had very little help from him at all. He’s an extremely involved dad, normally, so this just compounded it. Then, throw in the HUGE issue of me grieving my mom. Richie was super busy after Carter was born, too, but for 2 weeks Mom was at my house everyday during the hours that Richie worked. When Bodie was born I had a few people offer to come and help, but I wasn’t ready to let someone come in and *replace* Mom. But, the morning Bodie was delivered, and Richie told me his obligations to work that week, I called my aunt and godmother, Peggy, and she came down 2 days. I am not even sure when exactly these were taken. I think about 10 days old for Bodie. So, I am just getting to the point where looking at Bodie’s newborn photos don’t make me a little emotional. It only took 4 months.

He is so tiny here. He was born at 8lbs 14oz. While not “small” that is smaller than the 9lbs 12oz Carter. But, Bodie quickly put on the weight and he is even bigger than Carter was now. At a little over 2 months he was 16lbs 2oz and nearly 26in long. He’s my little linebacker, I tell ya.  I think he wore the outfit below twice.  He outgrew newborn clothes by 10 days old.

So, here’s a dose of just some snapshots of him. Not a perfect newborn session photo, but a perfect little baby.

A good photographer friend suggested, er, challenged some photographers to just capture moments this weekend. Well, by the time I remembered it, it was Saturday afternoon. So, this is us from Saturday afternoon, through dinner then the next morning. I had SUCH a good time doing this. I also installed my new slideshow software! I’m so excited about it too! I am not in any of these pictures because my role is “the woman behind the camera”. Honestly, if I’d told Richie what I was doing he would’ve taken some of me… but he’s so used to me just snapping away anyway, he didn’t question it. LOL!

1. Bodie is rolling.  Please note:  this is not with great enthusiasm.  I quite enjoy the time when he’s not mobile.  I even considered fashioning some sort of concrete block contraption to extend the non-mobile period a bit longer.  However, my dear friends brought it to my attention that that’s considered cruelty, so I guess I’ll let him continue with his development.  ::sigh::  The immobility was nice while it lasted.  (please note that I’m kidding and would never harm my child).

2.  I have such big things planned for this fall!  I’m working on Christmas card templates right now!  I plan on making them a password protected gallery for viewing (similar to last year, but even better).  I am GIDDY with excitement over this years templates.  Some are great ones from last year with a lot of new ones too!

3.  Is 4 months too late to send out birth announcements?  Because that’s what we’re doing.  Yup, I never got Bodies announcement sent out.  My kids are like the cobbler’s kid that have no shoes.  They have plenty of snapshots but I always put client editing ahead of theirs, so they sit on a folder on my computer collecting proverbial dust.

4.  Mother’s helpers.  MY LORD what did I do before them?  Oh that’s right?  I got very little done that wasn’t super late at night.  I’ve been so blessed this summer to have quite a few days with help from mother’s helpers.  I’m going to have to figure something out during the school year, because I can’t go back now!  The ability to sit down and work for any length of time is a luxury for a work from home mom.  But, with the helpers, I can be here to feed Bodie, run in the kitchen to make my lunch, or whatever.  It’s been glorious!  I plan on packing them in as best as I can before school starts back and all of my helpers go back to school!!!

5.  What I’m working on right now.  This is a long overdue session for a friend.   She is so sweet!

1)  I’m baaaa-ack!  We had a nice little vacation, and I am finally caught up on the post – vacation laundry and such!  Phew!!!  I gotta be honest, I still have at least one load of towels to fold an put away though.  Just keepin’ it real.

2)  With all of the challenge of 2 small children, teaching ballet, and running a successful business, the back burner has been Boden’s newborn photos.  I have just been putting them off for too long.  Here’s one I just finished.  I left his “angel kisses” in tact on this edit.

I know I’m a bit partial, but I just love that squishy face!!

3) I am running my a/c full time, house full of fans on high, and the external temp is in the 90s and I’m already planning for the holidays.  Holiday sessions and holiday cards that is!  I have some BEAUTIFUL plans for holiday cards this year!!  I can’t wait to share!  You’re gonna love them!

4) Don’t forget about summer mini sessions!

5)  A little plug and information for a great service.  Carter is a successful graduate of the Infant Swimming Resource program.  His instructor, Megan Zoller is a wonderful instructor.  This program is not simply about learning to swim, but for survival lessons should a child fall in the water.  Carter starts his refresher lessons next week.  His float is a little rusty.  I am so thankful for Megan and her services!  She is worth her weight in gold!!   Be prepared for some pics of him in lessons next week!

1)  I am so far behind editing personal photos!  I am STILL working on Boden’s newborn photos.  Don’t worry there will be a BIG post when they are done!  Here’s one from this morning that just made me melt…  Say it with me, “awwwwww”!

2) I am enjoying a weekend away with my family right now.  So, I may be slow to respond to emails and such.  I have internet access, but it’s via a wireless card, so it’s a bit slow.  I’d like to say “I deserve a weekend off”, but it’s just nearly impossible for me to make a clean break from technology.

3) I am booking Mini sessions right now, and have had quite the response to them!  They are only good on sessions that take place by September 15th, so book now before I’m all booked up!

4)  Christmas in July!!!  No, seriously!!  I am getting my holiday cards for 2010 picked out and organized!  Remember to ensure delivery for the holidays I am instating the following deadlines.   Nov. 15th:  Last day a session can take place and ensure product delivery by Christmas.  Dec. 1st:  Last day of orders to ensure Christmas delivery for standard prints and holiday cards.  If you want an album, the latest you can order that is Nov. 1st, so you’d need to have your session in the beginning of October to allow time for editing and design!

5) On a personal note:  I am finding motherhood just flat out hilarious.  I find myself saying things DAILY that I never dreamed would come out of my mouth.  This week?  Carter is obsessed with my armpits.  You know, the crease that is made when your arms are down by your side?  And the little bit of “fluff” (I’m telling myself it’s the fluff that is from my relaxed muscles against each other and not a fat pocket… hey, whatever gets me through the day, right?) that is there?  Carter likes to poke at it… and KISS it.  He’s been told REPEATEDLY “Do not touch people’s armpits, it’s yucky”.  So he tries to circumvent getting in trouble by asking “Is that Mama’s armpit?”  Why yes, Carter.  It is.  It is Mama’s armpit.  Then he’ll lean in and kiss it.  Blech.  Crazy kid.

And because I shared about Carter, I’ll share on Boden… he’s rolling over so well from belly to back!  I’m so proud of him!  He’s getting so big.  This week I had to put away the 3-6 months clothes and get down the next 3 sizes from the attic.  He’s asleep in a 9-12 month outfit right now.  It’s so cliche, but so true… They grow up so fast!!

I’ve been a bad photographer mommy.  I’ve had quite the “to do” list, and I made myself get through a good portion of it before I could edit pics of Bodie.  So, here on the day he turns 8 weeks old, I’m sharing pics of his first few days.  They aren’t fabulous portraits, just snapshots, but I love them, and I LOOOOVE the subject.  Boden is sweet, snuggly, sleepy, and just so many answered prayers!!   I need to take some pictures of Carter too, but he’s a bit more difficult in front of the camera so I choose the easy photo subject right now.  I have plenty more to edit from his newborn session (about 150 to be exact… yeah, I overshot a bit).

I love portrait photography, but sometimes just capturing the moment is all I want.  That’s what these are about.

I rented a macro lens, and this is one of the first shots from it.  That was a FUN lens, and I’ll be purchasing one of those soon!  Loved it for newborn detail shots!!

This swing was a fave of Carter’s and Boden is loving it too.  I just love the curled up hands in this shot.

Say it with me “Awwwww!!!”

Are you married?  When was the last time you had a photo (or portrait even) taken of just you and your spouse?   Go ahead and think… I’ll wait.  Yeah, that’s what I thought.  Stay tuned to the blog this week for an amazing blog contest!!

Also, are you a fan on facebook?  You should be!!!  I’m announcing a special for facebook fans ONLY right now!  Go go go!!  It’s a limited time offer!!  Just search Jennifer Mauren Photography and “like” the page!!