It all started when we were asked if we would be interested in doing a photo shoot for a book that's being published next year. I imagined the 3 of us dressing up really cute and posing next to burned down barns or running through fields of sunflowers, or doing something whimsical.
On Sunday, I got an email to schedule the shoot and found out that on Thursday, a photographer would be in our HOUSE from 2 pm until Jace's bedtime taking pictures of us 'living our daily lives' including, but not limited to, pictures of me jogging with Jace in the stroller. In the sun. While I'm sweating. Documented in a book. For the rest of time as I know it.
Ok, so Sunday starts panic mode. Sleepless nights. Crazy dreams. Like I had a dream that all of Jace's shoes were in the garbage can and so the photographer took pictures of me fetching his dirty garbage shoes out of the dirty garbage can and putting them on my child's feet. And I was mortified because I knew that everyone was going to see that Jace wears dirty shoes from garbage cans.And my mom was going to disown me. And this was a night. mare. Like, I woke up sweating and my heart was racing and I couldn't go back to sleep in fear of what my evil subconscious was going to stir up next.
I just felt so much pressure. I needed to tidy up our 'daily lives'.
So, whenever Owen leaves for work in the morning, Jace gets so sad and doesn't want him to leave and sometimes clings onto Owen's leg and cries. But, for some reason, when Owen gets home from work Jace runs away screaming! We can't figure it out but he needs like 5 minutes to warm up, it's like he's mad at him for leaving. So anyway, I just had this picture in my head of the photographer ready to take sweet 'welcome home, daddy' pictures but instead gets Jace running away screaming 'NOOOooooooooo!!!' So all week, the hour before Owen got home we practiced "what do we say when daddy gets home? We say, 'YAYYYY, DADDY!!!'" It worked. I trained him like a little monkey.
Then there's the house. I scrubbed every inch of the house. My window sills were polished with wood spray stuff I never knew I had! We got a picture for our dining room wall that has lived bare for the 2 years we've lived here. I took the leaves out of our dining table to make it look like it was for a small family instead of for the United States Army, and I made sure we all sat together as a family for dinner all week instead of Jace in his high chair, me at the counter and Owen eating while pacing around the kitchen.
I bought flowers for MYSELF. I never have ever bought flowers for my house. I don't even like when Owen buys me flowers. What girl doesn't like her husband buying her flowers, you ask? A practical one! I'd rather he spent $20 on a shirt for me than flowers. Buying the flowers was somewhat of a challenge because there were barely any options in the $6 range I was willing to pay. But, I found some. I got to the cash register and the clerk said 'these green flowers are so pretty!' They're green? I thought they were white! I bought green flowers? Are they weeds? Did I buy weeds for my table? But, I did it, I bought flowers for our dining table and I have to say I love them there. I wish they were fake so they didn't have to leave me.
As I dotted all my i's and crossed all my t's I sent a picture of practically every clothing item I owned to my cousins and sister-in-law to pick out the right 'casual at home shirt'. They all told me to calm."I mean, is the photographer really gonna take pictures of your windowsills? And maybe having some imperfections will allow others to feel the freedom to be imperfect."
That hit the core of my heart for 1/10th of a second. But, then I decided I was not going to let myself be the poster child of imperfection. Someone else could be a martyr. Not I. So, perfection it was.
Thursday morning, my sweet, little boy woke up with the snottiest nose and was a crazy, cranky, temper tantrumy ball of mess. Why? Why me? Why NOW? He usually wakes up with the biggest smile and so happy to see us. Nope. Of course not the day that will be documented for the rest of eternity. Perfection was now out of my control.
Ok, so the day happened. It was fine. We lived. We actually had fun and the photographer was really nice and it was easier to be normal than I thought it would be. We didn't have to fake it through. And when Jace screamed for rice at dinner and refused his enchiladas, I didn't even care. Because perfection, it doesn't exist. At least not for us.
Imperfection. It's so underrated. What a boring world perfection would be. I like our little world the way it is. We've got real. We've got raw. We've got messy. And a whole lot of love.
We are perfectly imperfect.
It's the best we've got.
And it's completely enough.
(But, if someone's going to come take pictures of our imperfect, there are some things that are completely acceptable to fix first! Right?)
On Sunday, I got an email to schedule the shoot and found out that on Thursday, a photographer would be in our HOUSE from 2 pm until Jace's bedtime taking pictures of us 'living our daily lives' including, but not limited to, pictures of me jogging with Jace in the stroller. In the sun. While I'm sweating. Documented in a book. For the rest of time as I know it.
Ok, so Sunday starts panic mode. Sleepless nights. Crazy dreams. Like I had a dream that all of Jace's shoes were in the garbage can and so the photographer took pictures of me fetching his dirty garbage shoes out of the dirty garbage can and putting them on my child's feet. And I was mortified because I knew that everyone was going to see that Jace wears dirty shoes from garbage cans.And my mom was going to disown me. And this was a night. mare. Like, I woke up sweating and my heart was racing and I couldn't go back to sleep in fear of what my evil subconscious was going to stir up next.
I just felt so much pressure. I needed to tidy up our 'daily lives'.
So, whenever Owen leaves for work in the morning, Jace gets so sad and doesn't want him to leave and sometimes clings onto Owen's leg and cries. But, for some reason, when Owen gets home from work Jace runs away screaming! We can't figure it out but he needs like 5 minutes to warm up, it's like he's mad at him for leaving. So anyway, I just had this picture in my head of the photographer ready to take sweet 'welcome home, daddy' pictures but instead gets Jace running away screaming 'NOOOooooooooo!!!' So all week, the hour before Owen got home we practiced "what do we say when daddy gets home? We say, 'YAYYYY, DADDY!!!'" It worked. I trained him like a little monkey.
Then there's the house. I scrubbed every inch of the house. My window sills were polished with wood spray stuff I never knew I had! We got a picture for our dining room wall that has lived bare for the 2 years we've lived here. I took the leaves out of our dining table to make it look like it was for a small family instead of for the United States Army, and I made sure we all sat together as a family for dinner all week instead of Jace in his high chair, me at the counter and Owen eating while pacing around the kitchen.
I bought flowers for MYSELF. I never have ever bought flowers for my house. I don't even like when Owen buys me flowers. What girl doesn't like her husband buying her flowers, you ask? A practical one! I'd rather he spent $20 on a shirt for me than flowers. Buying the flowers was somewhat of a challenge because there were barely any options in the $6 range I was willing to pay. But, I found some. I got to the cash register and the clerk said 'these green flowers are so pretty!' They're green? I thought they were white! I bought green flowers? Are they weeds? Did I buy weeds for my table? But, I did it, I bought flowers for our dining table and I have to say I love them there. I wish they were fake so they didn't have to leave me.
As I dotted all my i's and crossed all my t's I sent a picture of practically every clothing item I owned to my cousins and sister-in-law to pick out the right 'casual at home shirt'. They all told me to calm."I mean, is the photographer really gonna take pictures of your windowsills? And maybe having some imperfections will allow others to feel the freedom to be imperfect."
That hit the core of my heart for 1/10th of a second. But, then I decided I was not going to let myself be the poster child of imperfection. Someone else could be a martyr. Not I. So, perfection it was.
Thursday morning, my sweet, little boy woke up with the snottiest nose and was a crazy, cranky, temper tantrumy ball of mess. Why? Why me? Why NOW? He usually wakes up with the biggest smile and so happy to see us. Nope. Of course not the day that will be documented for the rest of eternity. Perfection was now out of my control.
Ok, so the day happened. It was fine. We lived. We actually had fun and the photographer was really nice and it was easier to be normal than I thought it would be. We didn't have to fake it through. And when Jace screamed for rice at dinner and refused his enchiladas, I didn't even care. Because perfection, it doesn't exist. At least not for us.
Imperfection. It's so underrated. What a boring world perfection would be. I like our little world the way it is. We've got real. We've got raw. We've got messy. And a whole lot of love.
We are perfectly imperfect.
It's the best we've got.
And it's completely enough.
(But, if someone's going to come take pictures of our imperfect, there are some things that are completely acceptable to fix first! Right?)
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| Our new artwork and green flowers:) |
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