Motherhood

Thanks to these two, I am a mother. And being their mother has taught me more about life than I learned in all of college. It’s on the job training, and I make mistakes regularly, but my bosses are forgiving and they make sure I get it right eventually!

On my short drive to church on Mother’s Day morning, I couldn’t help but reflect on the connection to Jesus that motherhood has brought. The priest mentioned during mass, how mothers are the only people that will ever live the sacrifice of Jesus, truly understanding when he said “This is my body, this is my blood.” As a mother, you give yourself completely for your child, for nine months before their birth and for the rest of their lives. During pregnancy, your body is literally given up for them. Every breath you take, every bite you eat, every drink you sip, will affect their health. As a mother, you forgive the sins of your children, no matter how serious. You love unconditionally, sacrificing yourself to teach them, to help them grow and blossom. There is nothing on this Earth more powerful than the love of a mother.

As a mother, you sacrifice your body; your tight little stomach that once looked great in a bikini, and now hides beneath a loose fitting t-shirt protecting the world from seeing the stretch marks and loose skin from pregnancy. You sacrifice your sleep, waking every few hours to feed for the first months of life, comforting a crying toddler after a bad dream, and waiting for curfew to bring your newly independent teenager safely home (I’m not quite there yet, but I know it will come too quickly). You sacrifice your interests; the leisurely reading of novels is replaced with building blocks and Thomas the train. You sacrifice fashion, replacing designer jeans and silk blouses with yoga pants and t-shirts, high heels replaced with sneakers, if you manage to actually take your slippers off!

I’ll admit, sometimes I get overwhelmed with the sacrifices of motherhood, and I wish for a day of freedom from the responsibility, a day to put on the high heels, to actually use a blow dryer on my hair, to wear a shirt that doesn’t have spit-up stains on it, and to enjoy a quiet meal alone! I think a day like that is important for my mental health, but at the end of it, I don’t look back and laugh at the funny things my son said that day, or feel the butterflies in my chest from hearing the baby laughs of my daughter, and that makes me miss the sacrifices and look forward to tomorrow—-when I intend to stay in my pajamas until nap-time and I’ll be lucky to get a shower before bedtime!

At mass, the priest read this article from Erma Brombeck. I leave you to read it and then call your mothers and tell them how beautiful they are!

Mother Earned Her Wrinkles

She has iron-starved blood, one shoulder is lower than the other, and she bites her fingernails.

She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She should be. She’s worked on that body and face for more than sixty years. The process for that kind of beauty cannot be rushed.

The wrinkles on her face have been earned…one at a time. The stubborn one around the lips that deepened with every “No!” The thin ones on the forehead that mysteriously appeared when the first child was born.

The eyes are protected by glass now, but you can still see the perma-circles around them. Young eyes are darting and fleeting. These are mature eyes that reflect a lifetime. Eyes that have glistened with pride, filled with tears of sorrow, snapped in anger and burned from loss of sleep. They are now direct and penetrating and look at you when you speak..

The bulges are classics. They developed slowly from babies too sleepy to walk who had to be carried home from Grandma’s, grocery bags lugged from the car, ashes carried out of the basement while her husband was at war. Now they are fed by a minimum of activity, a full refrigerator and television.

The extra chin is custom-grown and takes years to perfect. Sometimes you can only see it from the side, but it’s there. Pampered women don’t have an extra chin. They cream them away or pat the muscles until they become firm. But this chin has always been there, supporting a nodding head that has slept in a chair all night.

The legs are still shapely, but the step is slower. They ran too often for the bus, stood a little too long when she clerked in a department store, got beat up while teaching her daughter how to ride a two-wheeler. They’re purple at the back of the knees.

The hands? They’re small and veined and have been dunked, dipped, shook, patted, wrung, caught in doors, splintered, dyed, bitten and blistered, but you can’t help but be impressed when you see the ring finger that has shrunk from years of wearing the same wedding ring. It takes time – ands much more to diminish a finger.

I looked at Mother long and hard the other day and said, “Mom, I have never seen you look so beautiful!”

“I work at it,” she snapped.

Spring Break and Photography Workshops

I know I’ve been absent from the blog world lately.  Life has been a bit crazy for the last couple weeks.  My husband teaches at West Point and we were on spring break.  We went to Texas to visit my family.

We mowed lawns!

We drove tractors!

Some of us relaxed a bit!

And pondered the beauty of nature!

We rode horses!

And golf carts!

It was a great time.  Eli was exhausted at the end of everyday!  Nothing like some fresh air and horse power to waste a little energy!

Sadly when we came home, we found one of our cats to be very sick.  Ginger was in kidney failure and had to be put down.  She was my cat from high school.  I had had her for 17 years.  When she was younger she would take pinwheel peppermints out of our candy dish, knock them to the ground then chase them back and forth on the wooden floors, crashing into walls, and having a blast for hours.  She would play baseball with balled up candy wrappers.  She would sit on any book, newspaper, or paperwork you tried to read!  She always knew when I was feeling sad, and would give me a little extra attention.  She would purr like a motor just to the sound of her name being called!  She was well loved!

For more cheerful news, I’m taking an online photography workshop through Clickin Moms.  It is Shooting 101, and it is amazing!  I had been using manual a little before the class, but usually shot in Aperture Priority.  I have learned so much from the class that I’ve decided to take a study along to Shooting 201.

So far in the class we’ve covered metering, back button focus, white balance, including custom white balance, and so much more.  Below are some of my submissions for the lessons so far!  I know they aren’t great, but they’re getting better!

This was my submission for finding the “sweet spot” meter reading, or proper exposure for Adelaide.  Who knew that everyone would expose differently for your camera!

This is my pic for catch lights in my daughters eyes.

This week we were supposed to show motion by altering our shutter speed. I had a hard time capturing this.  But below was one attempt.  I’m going to keep working on this.

And this one is just for fun!

If you are looking to deepen your photography skills, whether it’s basic shooting skills or processing, they have tons of workshops to chose from.  I’m learning tons.  I highly recommend them!

Team Red White & Blue

I briefly mentioned my husband’s non-profit in my first post.  Most people that are reading this blog in its early days probably already know about Team Red, White & Blue (aka Team RWB), but for the few of you that don’t, I’ll tell you a little more.

My husband is a Major in the Army.  He has served one tour in Iraq and two in Afghanistan as a Intelligence Officer.  When he came home, he felt the need to support the wounded soldiers that served beside him.  He began running marathons and ultra-marathons and raising money for other veteran non-profits.  Raising $20,000+ for these organizations left him longing to get more involved.  He wanted to build more of a relationship with the veterans he was supporting.  From this Team RWB was born.

The organization works to help wounded veterans reintegrate into the civilian world after they leave the National Guard or Active Duty.  In a handful of chapters, Ann Arbor, DC, and Houston, Team RWB pairs wounded veterans with civilian peers, known as advocates, to build relationships and provide social opportunities.  In other areas of the country, running groups have formed, including civilians and wounded veterans.  And all over the country, thousands of people have joined Team RWB’s movement and now run, bike, swim, hike, do Crossfit, etc. in a Team RWB shirt and spread the word of their mission.

I encourage you all to check out Team RWB’s website and Facebook page.

On a more creative note, have you heard of Tagxedo?  I just discovered the site, but it is amazing!  I created these Team RWB eagle images using it, and I’m now addicted!  It is currently a free website, but will eventually become a site requiring membership, so get on board now!

Sanity Saver

I apologize for the bad photography.  My son was screaming “EAT, EAT, EAT” as I was plating this up, so it was taken with my iPhone in horrible lighting!  But it serves its purpose.

This little tray has been a life saver.  If you have a toddler, particularly a toddler boy, you know that there is a very long stage where they simply won’t sit in a chair to eat a meal.  After months of fighting and bribing him to eat his dinner, I looked to the internet for help.  This article by Dr. Sears really helped me come to grips with my son’s eating habits.  I immediately ordered one of the recommended nibble trays.  While I waited the 2 days for that to arrive (I’m an Amazon Mom, and if you are a mom and haven’t heard of this, you need to join it NOW!) I used our Beaba tray, although you could easily use an ice cube tray.  I don’t know that it made him eat any more than he was when I was chasing him around and shoving food in his mouth, but it has definitely saved my husband and me from a lot of stress and frustration!  And our son loves it!  It’s like his own personal salad bar every day!

When Eli wakes up from his nap, I simply put out a tray filled with a variety of healthy choices and he nibbles on it all afternoon.  At dinner time I simply bring the tray to the table and add a sample of what my husband and I are eating for dinner.  I no longer worry about him eating enough at dinner time, and I know he is getting a variety of fruits and vegetables.  And I no longer have to fight over what’s for snack.  I simply add one of his current favorites (Goldfish pretzels) to the tray and he eats those first then moves on to the other foods.

This concept is wonderful for introducing new foods.  I simply add the new food (usually a vegetable) in one of the little compartments everyday.  Usually, it is completely ignored on the first day, a nibble or two is taken on the second day, and after 3-4 days he decides he loves the new vegetable.  Of course, if you have a toddler you know that favorite foods only last for a day, then they are back on the “DO NOT EAT” list again!  Incase you are curious, today, Eli ate everything in the tray except the peas and carrots, both of which he at least took a bite of.

Allow me to introduce myself!

Hello Blog World!  Allow me to introduce myself!  I am Genevieve, a mother of 2, an Army wife, a runner, a very learning photographer, and a home cook.

Here is my son, Eli.  He’s 21 months old, and an exciting combination of my husbands endless energy and motivation, and my stubbornness persistence!

Photo by my amazing sister-in-law, Bridget Marques. Check her out on Facebook, B. Marq Photography.

Here is our angel, Adelaide.  She is 3 months old, and is my savior.  She already sleeps better than her brother did, wait than her brother does!

Another photo by B. Marq Photography.

As a stay at home mom and a volunteer in my husband’s non-profit organization, more on that later, I have been looking for something for myself.  I was once a special education teacher, a lifetime ago, and I’ve recently been longing for that sense of fulfillment that came with a hard days work.  Don’t get me wrong, the days are still hard, and I do plenty of work, but I am craving a creative outlet.  I had been researching possible jobs, but decided that didn’t work for my family.  I contemplated going back to school, but that is a major time commitment, and having a three month old and a twenty-one month old, I’m not ready to spend my days at school and my nights in a text book.  I need something for me that includes my family rather than excluding them.  That is when Simmer & Savor was born.

Really, I’m hoping this blog will hold me accountable for my own dreams.  Everyone makes resolutions this time of year, and they are out with the trash by February 1.  My goal is to allow this blog to help me grow and to share it with you, incase it helps someone else reach their goals.

So what are those goals, you ask?  More on that tomorrow!

I leave you today with a quote that inspired the name for this blog:

“Savor life’s tiny delights–a crackling fire, a glorious sunset, a hug from a child, a walk with a loved one, a kiss behind the ear.”~John Anthony