Pea Puree

Lately, I've been thinking about the differences between number one and number two.  I just read that sentence back and took the terms '#1 and #2' to mean something a little different than birth order...if you know what I'm sayin'.  Great, now I can't stop thinking of my children as '#1' and '#2'.  Miles always gets the shit end of the stick around here.  I'll be back with more once I reboot my brain.

Celebrating 10 years or 30 years, either way.

A decade seems impossible. Thirty years seems insane.

Several years back, I wrote a sappy, albeit heartfelt, post about why we don't celebrate our anniversary. Ten years seemed as good a reason as any to break that rule. So we did.

I pumped like crazy to save up enough milk to be away for a night, and we called in reinforcements (aka Ferris' mom) to take care of the babies. It was a 'staycation' that landed us at the Regency and then Hugo's for dinner. We've lived in Portland for six years and have successfully avoided Hugo's that entire time. Hugo's and Chef Rob Evens are James Beard winners, precious food, expensive, blah blah blah.  Whatever it is, it's not our thing. Ultimately, I forgot to get reservations at one of many other great spots and Hugo's was the only place to let us in the door. Even then, the only available spots were two lonely seats at the bar.

So, we bellied up, each with a brimming Mojito in hand and enjoyed one of the best meals we've ever shared together. I'll give you some back story so you can understand what this means to us. I may have written about this before, so please forgive the indulgence.

It's unclear when Ferris and I first met, although we know it happened roughly 30 years ago on 6th Street in Pocasmello. Ferris' family moved next door to my Grandma Lula's house when we were one. 327 million backyard afternoons, paper routes, birthday parties, Halloweens, games of checkers, etc later, we developed a mad friendship and a very repressed crush.  His family was Catholic, mine was Mormon, enough said. We were never 'a thing', but he was always the boy at the party I wanted to sit by.  It was inexplicable...like subtle, unspoken, unnoticed magnets.

After high school, he went his way and I went mine only to end up back in Pocasmello after our freshman year. Within days, we found ourselves together again and happy.

Sidebar: I said 'I love you' first, and Ferris said nothing back. Crickets...he totally left me hanging.

We spent the next two years doing a long distance relationship, which totally sucked, and the summer before our senior year, I visited Ferris in Cleveland where he was interning. He was also secretly buying an engagement ring.  I should note that I wanted to puke when he proposed. My gut jumped into my throat, and I wanted to pass out. I said yes, but everything in my being wanted to run.  I wanted to grab him and run because I knew how our engagement would fall on our families...like 1,000 tons of dog shit.

I was right, but that didn't stop us.

You see, I may have said 'I love you' years before, but I had no idea what I was talking about. When I said it, I was feeling something more like 'you are so awesome....so awesome that I'm feeling something bigger and cooler than I've ever felt before'. In reality, I fell in love with Ferris over a bowl of insanely delicious pasta and my first real cappuccino at Salvatore's Restaurant in Cleveland the night before he proposed. And even when I said 'I love you' then, I was feeling something more like 'my future is with you...I want to spend my life with you and it scares the shit out of me'.

So, when the lovely server at Hugo's brought course after course of decadent goodness, both Ferris and I said 'I love you' after devouring every bite. And while I meant those words just as much as I meant them all those years before, I was feeling something more like...

I am connected to you by something stronger than the insane love I'm feeling right now. I'm connected to you through the babies we made and take care of every single day. We are a family, a lovely one.

I am yours...past, present, and future.

Born Conceptual

Ferris: Eva, what color is your hair?

Eva: (Quizzical, stares off into space, brain wheels spinning) My hair can't be a color. It's just hair.

Ferris: Look in the mirror and tell me what you see.

Eva: (Looks in the mirror, smiles, gets it) My hair is yellow...like my home.

Ferris: What color is Miles' hair?

Eva: (Quizzical, stares off into space, brain wheels spinning) Silly, Miles isn't wearing any hair.

Handsome is as handsome does

It's no wonder we make such ridiculously beautiful children.

We celebrated the launch last night by clinking a few glasses of champagne and eating a mound of brussel sprouts.  Mustn't forget the weight watchers, you know. Oh, how I love this man.

Committed

I'm getting used to this stay at home mothering stuff. I say this moments after an over-cooked (shall we say incinerated?) slice of toast nearly burned down my house when the toaster refused to spit it out. I sat Eva squarely in front of Pinky Dinky Doo under a breakfast tray of waffles and orange juice. Then, I popped some bread in the toaster just as Miles started to cry in search of some breakfast of his own. So I left the toast. I left the toast because I had confidence it could take care of itself while the little ones in my life could not. Minutes later, my house was awash in clouds of toast smoke...thick toast smoke. Of course, Eva needed to be to school in ten minutes, Miles wanted more milk, and the incinerated toast had become something akin to glowing charcoal. Oh, and I mustn't forget to mention that the smoke alarms DID NOT go off as they should have.

And away we go.

The upside of stay at home motherhood is the simplicity. I don't mean to say that life is simple. I mean to say that my life (or rather my brain space) is much less full now that I don't have the social work gig. I plan to write more about that sometime soon. At this point, for me, it's worth mentioning that less social work means more energy for my kids and photography.

On the days when Eva is at school, Miles and I are free to wonder the city as we please, and I'm reminded of earlier days when Eva was little. Ferris was still super busy with residency, so I coped with the loneliness by taking long adventures with Eva and my camera. More than just surviving, I discovered a passion and eventually a small business.

These are a few outtakes from a morning spent last week at Arabica. Life with a newborn and a toddler is never easy, even in the best of circumstances, but I can't begin to explain how much I'm loving just being able to shoot. Instead of working behind a desk, my job is now about working in the world. All this new freedom (freedom from the chains of a desk) is lending itself to gobs more opportunity to shoot. And more shooting equals more happiness.

It feels like coming home.