Fifteen:Fifty-One Photography | The Blog

Have you ever wished that it was yesterday again?  Or last week? Or even just five minutes ago?

A few years ago – before I was a parent or a full-time photographer – I was sitting on a bench outside of my office waiting for Steve to come and pick me up after work.  It had been a depressingly dark and damp Wednesday afternoon.  The bench that I was sitting on was marble and cold, with little drops of rain dripping from the underside.  I had been having a really difficult time that day and felt plagued with troubles that I simply couldn’t figure out.  Questions about my work…questions about my contribution…questions about my life.  It was hard and discouraging and I clearly remember the heavy burden that I felt from trying to tackle all of these questions at once.

The next evening – right around the same time – Steve and I had been sitting in our bed, laughing and catching up on our day together.  There was a warm spring breeze coming in from the open window in our bedroom and the day as a whole looked very different than the one I had endured twenty-four hours earlier.  Not more than ten minutes later though, it turned into the scariest day of my life.  One of the worst.  One that I wanted so badly to forget.

As we endured the flood of emotions that soon followed, one of the things that I remember most was the desire for it to be yesterday again.  I would have given anything for it to be yesterday again…anything to be sitting on that bench again.  Basically, I would have given anything for my problems of yesterday to be my problems of today.  Sitting there, at the bottom of our stairs, curled up in a ball in tears, made me realize just how much our problems are relative…how much they are actually manageable once put into perspective.  And so I wanted yesterday back.  I wanted those problems back because those problems – once put into my split second change of mind set – were actually the subtle beauties of life…the challenges that bring us growth, maturity and wisdom.

I was remembering once again the “problems of yesterday” as I was sitting with Hudson in his room around four o’clock this morning…

Our son has fallen completely in love with his little sister!  He simply cannot get enough of her and has become the most adoring of big brothers over the past month.  He is, however, still struggling with the adjustment in his own way.  Most of which being at night.  Our little all-star sleeper hasn’t made it through the night once since the day we brought Avery home from the hospital.  Instead, he shuffles down the hallway at all hours of the night wanting to crawl into bed with us {bless his heart}.  Sometimes this happens once or twice a night…other times {like last night}, it happens seven or eight times a night.  Throw in the mix a couple of feedings for our little lady and it can make for some pretty blurry day time hours!  It also makes perspective a little harder to maintain at times since I’m convinced that chronic fatigue is the death of all sanity!

And so, in the wee hours of the night…when it feels like I may never sleep for more than an hour at a time ever again…instead of wishing away that terrifying night in our lives so many years ago…I try to compassionately remember the yesterday.  In fact, in some ways, I’m almost grateful for that life changing moment because it reminds me that – given the choice – I would effortlessly choose the challenge of comforting my children in the middle of the night over any number of life’s more ravaging turn of events.  And it makes it easier.  In some instances, it even makes it beautiful {groggy and exhausting, yes…but still beautiful!} because there are, most definitely, many worse things in life than watching the snow fall on your deserted street at three in the morning with your baby curled up on your lap.  There are worse things than being needed.  There are worse things than the sleep deprivation that comes with the two amazing little people that sleep {or don’t sleep!} at the end of your hallway!

There is always something worse than what you thought was yesterday’s problems…

Photo credit: Ewan Phelan, The Last Forty Percent Photography, www.lastfortypercent.com

“The snow is snowing, the wind is blowing
But I can weather the storm!
What do I care how much it may storm?
I’ve got my love to keep me warm…”
~ Irving Berlin

Here we are…the night before Christmas!

As I write this, Avery is dozing to sleep on my lap; Hudson is playing with his grandma; Steve is enjoying a moment of solitude in our bedroom and Christmas carols are resonating throughout the house.  All in all, peace is permeating our home right now.  And hopefully yours as well.

It’s been an amazing two weeks for us in the Smyth house.  It’s been an amazing twelve months actually but the last two weeks in particular – the first two weeks with our daugther – has been the very essence of what Christmas is really about.  We’ve enjoyed the gift of health, happiness, family and friends.  We’ve enjoyed the Christmas spirit in its purest form.

Of course, we’ve also managed to mix in some tree trimming, some gingerbread house making and some excessive holiday baking.  But it is only fair…if I’m going to get up countless times in the night to feed my beautiful newborn…then it only makes sense that I should have the proper baked good to get me through the long dark hours!!!  I’m pretty sure that Santa would want it that way!!

But now it’s time for a little break.  A Christmas break.  It’s time for some decadent hot chocolate made on the stove…some board games to be pulled out of retirement and some serious joy to be had as we watch our son discover Christmas for the first time as a toddler {he feels the need to go and “check in” on his tree ornaments every day…just to make sure they are right where he left them!!!}.  It’s time for a little rest and relaxation and soaking in the magic of it all.

So, from our family to yours, we wish you the loveliest of holidays.  We hope that it’s filled with loved ones, more holiday movies than you can handle and a slight overdose on all things chocolate!

Merry Christmas everyone…may your love keep you warm…

When I was a little girl, my Mother and I used to live near a cemetery.  To this day, I don’t know what intrigued us so much about the cemetery but, it never occurred to me as strange to want to spend our time there. We would climb the hill to its gated perimeters and spend hours walking paths that always seemed new to us despite having been there just days before.

It was one of those cemeteries that had evidently been there long before it’s surroundings and if you closed your eyes and stood very still, you could picture it’s original landscape, before the ravages of time took over and turned it into a lone piece of solitude among the concrete jungle of urban living.   It was the kind of cemetery that commanded respect because somehow it knew that it had been there far longer than any of us and would continue to do so for centuries to come.

Its large iron fence protected it from the world and I always remember the day that a teenage boy tried to climb over its locked gates; His foot ended up slipping on the late night dew and he was left hanging on the fence, with one of the rough iron spokes piercing through the side of his cheek.  The image of him hanging there was etched into my mind as it made the cover of the newspaper the next morning.  Many of the local residents were appalled at the idea of showing such grotesque reality in our little ideal world but, to me, I saw it as a sign of punishment that the cemetery had handed out for ever thinking that it’s walls could be penetrated by the arrogance of adolescent supremacy.  They never did end up having to bury that boy in the cemetery, as he was lucky enough to survive, but teenagers everywhere grew cautious of its boundaries.  For all the limits that they would test during their years in no man’s land, the cemetery came as a reminder that there are some lines that simply can’t be crossed.

What I remember most about the cemetery, was the generations of life that seemed to be buried together.  On any given day, you could trace the steps of an entire family name through the etched markings on their gravestones.  Anywhere from thirty to fifty graves would trace over a century worth of history among people bound by blood.  And perhaps that’s what made it so special to us…it gave us the ability to glimpse at a history that we ourselves did not possess.

My Mom was adopted when she was just a young girl.  It’s a story that would make your heart break and it’s also a story best told by my Mother.  Every history means something different to every person but some truths remain no matter what.  And the reality of our truth was that – as far as heritage goes – I would never know the biological roots of my Mother’s family.  I could read about it or research it or look it up online.  But I would never know it.  I would never be able to tell stories about it or frame pictures about it or share family resemblances in it.

What we did have though was an amazing bunch of adoptive family that I would always grow to know as my own.  From my earliest memories of childhood, they were the best family a girl could ask for…loving, accepting, unconditional.  But it still never changed the fact that during our annual family pictures…my Mom and I always looked different than the others.  And certainly not that similar hair or eye colour matters in any significant way…seeing those pictures did always act as a reminder; a reminder that even with the innocence and naivety of my youth, I knew that gravestones would never tell the tale of our lives and no one would ever walk through a cemetery to find our collective history beneath their feet.

There is more to it than that though.  If the past thirty-three years has taught me anything…it’s that you don’t need history in order to create it.  You don’t need your family tree to be a towering oak in order to be strong.  You simply need it to have roots.

Last Friday morning, my daughter was born.

Avery Victoria Smyth came into the world at 11:10am and in that moment…she began to change everything.  She began to make the roots stronger.  Victoria {also my own middle name} is the name of the fiercely strong and independent woman that adopted my mother and in doing so, gave us the opportunity to create a history all our own.  Avery has my ears and my lips, and from what I can tell…my ruthless stubborn streak!  More importantly though, when the time comes to try to tie back her beautiful hair and the long strands inevitably fall in her face…I get to tell her that no amount of restraint can tame the likes of her dark mane that has been passed down by generations of women before her.

Because while history may have its place in the world and in our lives…it is nothing in comparison to the story that we are about to tell.

Welcome to the story Baby Avery…

Oh my goodness!  Talk about writer’s block!  For days on end now, I’ve had loads on my mind…but every time I come here and try to string the words together…I just draw a blank.  All systems seem to fail.  I suppose that I do have a fairly legitimate reason for being distracted these days.  The birth of our daughter has sort of consumed my thoughts as of late.  My mom calls it “baby blackout” and that seems as good an explanation as any!!!

I was putting Hudson to bed last night when I noticed how big he’s gotten.  I remember when he was just little and he used to comfortably fit – spread eagle – across a pillow on my lap.  Now, when I sit with him in his chair at night, his legs dangle over the edge and his fingers seem so much bigger wrapped around mine.  He still manages to curl up in tight little ball on my lap though and snuggle in until he dozes off…just like the first night we brought him home.

I’ve been putting Hudson to sleep a lot lately as I realize that his days as my only baby are coming to an end.  For nearly twenty-one months, it’s been just the three of us and very shortly we will no longer just watch Hudson grow as our little boy…but also as a big brother.  The elder sibling.  It’s kind of a strange feeling and I hope that I can remember all of the little details of these last few days.

We found out two weeks ago that our little girl is breech – which means that her head is tucked up by my ribs instead of being in the normal head down position necessary for child birth.  The doctors are suspecting that a lack of amniotic fluid has kept her from being able to turn on her own…and a lack of amniotic fluid is often a result of being dehydrated…and my dehydration is likely a result of having thrown up for six months straight!  So really, this just goes to show that our little lady – most definitely – feels the need to call the shots!!!

Despite being a rare candidate for attempting a breech delivery, we’ve spent the past two weeks trying everything from the Webster’s Technique to laying on a ironing board to performing an ECV {note: not the most delightful way to try and turn a baby!!} in an attempt to lure her into flipping.  In the end, we’ve achieved little more than concluding that she’s very happy right where she is!  So a breech delivery it was then {lucky me!}.

Being a candidate for a breech delivery though means being monitored fairly closely as there are four major qualifications that make you eligible and the moment one of them changes, then the decision to deliver naturally is no longer an option.  Well, just when we thought our baby girl had given us all the grief that she could throw at us…she went ahead this past Monday and changed her position in utero just enough to no longer make us appropriate candidates.

Okay…so long story short…what does this all mean?

It means that after much discussion with our doctor…tomorrow we are going to meet our daughter for the first time!  Tomorrow morning – while much of the world is still just waking up – I will be getting prepped in an operating room to have our baby delivered by elective c-section…the option of least resistance to both of us given her recent internal gymnastics.

Tomorrow is going to be our daughter’s birthday!

What a strange feeling to know when your baby is going to arrive!  To no longer have to anticipate labour or wonder when the big day will be.  What a strange feeling to plan for her arrival instead of reacting to it!  What a different experience from Hudson’s big day!

So with that…I will sign off for night and put my little man to bed one last time as my only child.  One last time as the only little munchkin in our lives.  One last time as my only experience being a mother.

And as for you, cyberspace…I’ll see you on the flip side!