You Capture: Motherhood

Grown don't mean nothing to a mother.  A child is a child.  They get bigger, older, but grown?  What's that suppose to mean?  In my heart it don't mean a thing. 

~Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987

These days, nearly any photo I take would work for capturing motherhood, but more and more often I think that will always be the case, even when I'm not so immediately involved with the basic needs sorts of mothering you do with small children. Being a mother does something to you. I know it influences not just what I do each day and the decisions I make, but also how I see the world. I think with some people it happens immediately, maybe when you first learn you're pregnant, maybe when hear the first heartbeat, maybe when you hold your child for the first time. But, for me, I don't think there was necessarily a moment, but instead this sense of connection that increases the longer I know my children. It's both wonderful and terrifying how important my children are to me.

Being a mother is also incredibly time consuming and being the mother of a lot of children can be hectic. So, instead of purposefully gathering images, I'm sitting in an airport with about 13 free minutes and seeing what I can come up with as I look at photos from this last week of being a mother to this gang:

Israel @ the Arlee track meet

Azia-Rain taking a break from her softball tournament to enjoy Ahni's birthday

Zoran. Focused.

Lex refusing to let me wash his hair. 

 Another thing I love about motherhood is watching all the other wonderful mothers I know.  I'm surrounded by so many women who have been doing this difficult job so well for many, many years. My mom and grandmothers and sisters and sister-in-laws, and friends not only take care of their own children, they take care of mine as if they were their own.

And the older I get the more thankful I am I had my children fairly young. This means they'll not only do my children know and have spent all their lives with their grandparents, they've known their great grandparents, too.

Azia and her yaya dancing at the Mission Powwow

It's wonderful to be tucked in the middle of all these generations, learning from those who've been doing this longer than I have, watching my daughter with all these strong women who have so much to share.

Elda showing Azia (her great grand daughter) how to make the flowers she's been making for decades.