Caroline Ellison Price

Documenting It All

School Beginnings: The First Weeks of Have Been….

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The first weeks of school have been…..

…..great for the kids!

…..hard on this mama.

My babies….I miss them during the day. Building up to summer I dread and worry about what we will do to fill the time. Somehow, that always works itself out, though, as it did both this summer and summer before last. However, once school starts back, suddenly I find myself with roughly seven hours of nothing to fill the day with.

I read my daily devotional and blog haunts. I am trying to exercise more. Occasional coffee dates are starting to happen. The training to be able to volunteer at Oliver’s school was last week, and I attended it.

The effort is somewhat there.

Sleep is an easy answer. I get up some mornings to help with the morning routine. More often than not, whether I get up early or not, I go back to bed and sleep till midday. That has been a problem.

I think my antidepressant is still working. There’s just no good routine in place, more effort needs to be made to filling the days with more than just zoning out.

I miss my babies.

Photo Days

It has been a bit of a photographic crisis, too. Other than two weddings coming up in October and November, I haven’t done a great deal of marketing to drive up business. My heart just hasn’t been in it. But, I also haven’t been picking up the camera to do personal projects much either. There’s a day on my calendar every month to be able to say, “Hey, here’s a photo day for the entire day,” but I have yet to actually use one of those days.

Ideally, a photo day would consist of me going somewhere out of the house, preferably for several hours at a time.

The kids have adapted well and welcomed the change in routine. I am happy for them that they get to see their friends and get to have a full day. I am just lousy at creating full days for myself that don’t consist of only housework or internet reading.

First Day of School– It’s Kindergarten Time!

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These feet belong to a Kindergartner. They aren’t baby feet anymore. The first day of school is tomorrow. And with that, here is the end of Summer Break 2019.

This is all a happy thing to this mom. It means no more PJ Masks or Puppy Dog Pals for hours on end. It also probably means evenings of a cuddly Oliver.

I was looking back at how far we’ve come. Liam was in Kindergarten when O was born, with the same teacher that O will now have. That next summer was so hard, balancing the needs of a small baby with the needs of my big boys to be active. I wrote about it in Motherhood in Summertime.

The first day of school for Porter and Liam will be Friday. Then this mom will really have to work to create a routine.

I am looking forward to it, really. I intend to build more dedicated photo days into my schedule. I have two weddings this Fall, and at least two portrait sessions plus a photo project for church.

However, I have a virus at the moment. Here’s to hoping nobody who has to go to school or work catches it. Coming home sick the first day of school would be no joke whatsoever. No fun. I, however, feel like I have been hit by a truck. So I am mostly quarantining myself in the bedroom.

I will miss Open House at the junior high school with Porter completely. That experience will be gone. I stayed home last year and due to being sick, I will not go with Porter and Jared to Open House tonight. *sigh* I hate missing out, but there will be junior high Open House with the other two. And next year, I will not miss out on Open House for high school.

Hug your babies. Time flies faster every year that goes by.

The Tog Mom– First Morning and Getting Ready for School

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Just this week, I reassessed domain names and moved all writing to The Tog Mom. I am cautiously optimistic in this change– it was a relative spur-of-the-moment decision, but I was ready something different anyway. My previous domain, Rainbow Tulip, is a great name but doesn’t really say anything about who I am. The Tog Mom speaks to the fact that I am a mom photographer. Being both a mom and a photographer are both integral to who Caroline is. I cannot be who I am anymore without describing myself as both of these things.

The day started with a jolt this morning. School starts Thursday for Oliver and Friday for Porter and Liam. So, we woke up early this morning so it won’t be such a shock to the system on the first days of school. None of us were really ready for it.

Two days to the start of school. We have supplies ready, but I know my boys are mourning the loss of summertime. They have enjoyed pure freedom this summer. For the most part, all three boys have done precisely what they wanted to do most every day this summer. I am thankful we were able to provide that freedom for them.

I would say on the whole that this summer was a success. We went to Washington, D.C. and saw the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Center and the National Museum of Natural History. The boys went to St. Simons and saw the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island while Jared and I enjoyed Savannah. Grandpa Jack and Grandma Patty came for a visit. The boys all played a lot of video games this summer. This mom spent a significant amount of time on the deck with coffee. Porter grew at least three inches this summer.

Photography became important to me again this summer. The big cameras have come out more this summer, but I haven’t stressed when the phone camera had to do instead of the big cameras. I’ve had my usual gear reassessments and reaffirmed my commitment to my Fuji gear.

My goal for this blog is to focus on the areas where photography and parenting intersect. Please come back and read again!

Happy 4th of July!

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It’s the 4th of July. My favorite holiday practically my whole life.

When I was growing up, the 4th of July always meant the beach for a week, maybe two weeks some years. For years I couldn’t imagine fireworks not shot off from a pier, over the water.

For the more recent past, the 4th of July has meant braving the crowds at the schools for the fireworks and concert here in town.

Today, it means lunch with family and then freedom to do what we like, whether that is to continue the concert and fireworks tradition, or to create a new tradition. I am undecided at the moment, though I’ll admit the long traffic lines after the fireworks are not really appealing just right now.

Maybe I can talk the boys into a movie. Secret Life of Pets 2 or the new Spiderman are both showing in Newnan.

Summer

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Our deck is saving my life this summer.

This is the laziest summer we have had since 2013, the summer we found out I was pregnant with Oliver. It has been Heaven.

Sleeping regularly until 10:30. Going nowhere, except for maybe a ride in the evenings. A couple of photo gigs.

TV and video games are the rule of the summer at our house this year, and I am completely unashamed of it. Everyone is bathing and eating regularly. And getting to bed at reasonable hours.

I dreaded summer. But I will surely miss the kids’ company when they go back to school in less than a month now.

I am less distressed about the past today. Having wedding photos to concentrate on finishing has really been a Godsend the past couple of days.

But really, I think it’s more than that. I feel more peace when I release Steve from my daily thoughts. Less trauma memories. That’s all I really have, really, are trauma memories of that relationship. Sometimes it feels like I have to hang onto those for some reason, as if keeping those memories close to the surface will somehow protect me from bad things happening. I understand that is a serious fallacy.