{Photo Credit - www.therealdealphotography.com}

I always knew that motherhood would change my life. I expected my social life to drop off a bit. I prepared myself for the spare time I loved investing in sitting around in facial masks and marinating in self tan would go from every week to maybe every fortnight. A bit less sleep never killed anybody, right? Pretty much i would just be rearranging my priorities and smothering this little blob of baby with all of the love in the world.

I can tell you now, while I sit here in my pyjamas at midday, on my sixth coffee and running my fingers through what is more dry shampoo than (breastfeeding balding) hair, I knew nothing.

Everyone has heard how hard parenting is, especially the shock of that first year. Yeah, I’m tired. So tired that there are things that I procrastinate about so badly and then when I finally get around to them I find that I have already done them….? I rewrote my entire website and have no recollection of it.

There are weeks when I only tan the parts of my body that will be seen - below the knee and everything above and beside my chest. Exfoliating is a fond memory and I swear my disposable razor is going to see this year out.

And my social life? It exists solely on instagram.

The physical side of the last six months have been rough. Moreso for my partner who actually has to look at me on those weeks where I am working from home. This did take me by surprise a little, I promised myself that I would never let my masking and marinating take a back seat to my life. But, something else has taken it’s place and it’s been a real game changer.

I have fallen head over heels, obsessively and eternally in love with my son. I know, shocker, right? He’s not only pushed my partner off his pedestal when it comes to the number one love of my life, but he has changed the way I love. What I love and how I bring more of it into my life.

Touch, connection, intimacy, warmth, closeness, tenderness, attachment. The messiness and chaoss of the everyday. The quietness. The familiarity. The delight of family life.

I have a deeper appreciation for small moments that, if you aren’t fully present you would miss. A little stroke across the chest from a nursing babe. Giggles during a nap. The last little sigh let out before a little one finally drifts off into sleep for the night.

I am living for these moments and it hasn’t just changed my personal life (and quite frankly what I am living for right now), it has encouraged an evolution in my photography. It has gently pushed me to look past the aesthetics of a home and see the happy place that has heights marked on doorways, little fingerprints on windows from times spent sitting on laps and taking in the outside world.

I don’t see perfect families in perfect homes in perfect clothes. I see the tribe that you have made and live for. I see the love, comfortableness and familiarity of those little arms wrapped around your neck.

I see you, mumma and everything that is important to you. Not how things ‘look’, or how things should be, but something so much more important than that. I see why we do all of this. I see pure, honest love.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

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