This past week has really testing my parenting skills. I don’t mean in a “care and feeding and keeping them mostly alive” way – that I can handle. I mean in a “Mommy, who is God?” kind of way. Those question make an alarm go off in my head that blares: WARNING WARNING! Code red question alert, run away or distract with candy immediately! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised this stuff is starting to come up, since 4 1/2 and almost 3 are ages known for ALL THE QUESTIONS but it doesn’t change the fact that in the moment I freeze up and I never know what to say.

The first one was at the park last weekend, while I was taking pictures and Evan was supposed to be helping but wanted to pout instead. Evan is an expert flouncer – he would win the gold, silver and bronze flounce medals in flouncing and the Flounce Olympics – and was trying to flounce himself away from me…right into the graveyard at Fort Shantok, which is part of the Mohegan tribe’s sacred burial lands. NOT A GOOD SPOT FOR FLOUNCING. (For the record, the graveyard is 100 feet from a playground and a baseball field, it’s not like we climbed a fence to go tromping through it on purpose.) I hissed at him not to go in there but he kept inching further away from me until I said “That is a GRAVEYARD. Stay OUT.”

Stupid, stupid Suzanne. Of course then he wanted to know what a graveyard was and WHY do they put dead people there and are there STILL dead people there and what HAPPENS to dead people once they’re in the ground and does that mean HE is going to turn into dirt TOO???

I managed not to mention zombies.  HIGH FIVES.

We both survived, and I think I’m the only one of us who’s still concerned about it, so it wasn’t the worst conversation ever. But it certainly wasn’t a shining moment in using my words.

The second one, which is way harder, is Evan’s bus situation. His best friend since before he was even capable of having friends is on his going-home bus, but there have been some problems with teasing. The good news is Evan isn’t the ringleader and after I found out he was involved we had a good talk and he apologized now he knows he’s supposed to tell people “Those are not kind words, be nice to my friends!” The bad news is four year olds forget stuff and some parents are more involved and some are less involved and when the only adult there is a bus driver whose job it is to DRIVE the bus it’s easy for someone to get their feelings hurt.

In an attempt to separate the troublemakers, Evan ended up with an assigned seat next to a kid he doesn’t know. The bus driver – who is very nice – told me Evan was upset the first assigned-seat day, so I asked him why he couldn’t be friends with the girl he was sitting with. He said,”I don’t want to sit with her, she has yucky boo boos on her face!”

My brain said: “Aaaaaaagh alert alert, your child is a jerk! Fix it! Fix it now!!!”

My mouth said: “Evan! That is not OK! You be nice! To everyone! Even people with…who…different! Everyone is different! We are friends with everyone even different people!”

“OK Mommy,” said Evan.

I composed myself and we talked about it again later. I must not have done too badly, since the next day he told me he sat with (that same girl) and they were new best friends and the bus driver reports that he’s been good. It’s only a 15 minute bus ride, I don’t want it to be the most stressful part of his whole life. It’s crazy to me 4 year olds even know HOW to be mean to each other on the bus – at home the meanest thing Evan ever does to his sister is not share toys. He wouldn’t have any idea how to hurt her with just words and it scares me that pretty soon he probably will. I’m going to need to read a book or watch a YouTube channel or get in touch with Mr. Roger’s ghost somehow to help me navigate this life lesson stuff.

Can we just go back to babies that never sleep and when to introduce finger foods? That seems less likely to cause permanent damage.

Back in the photo session saddle again, which means my iPhone is feeling pretty neglected. The kids actually ASKED me to take their picture this week. It’s a miracle!

Sunday:

Celebrity sighting at Type-A! It’s hard to tell, but it’s Minnie Mouse.

Ballet slipper = my absolute new favorite color. MinuteClinic had the best swag.

Oh, OK. I can do that.

Monday:

The waiting-for-the-bus dance

I could not love his school picture more.

Tuesday:

Verdict: good, but not amazing.

Clark Farms! Donkeys! Goats! Sheeps!

And a giant slide!!!!

Wednesday:

She dressed herself, then started carrying around that kitty in a box (?? I think it was swag from something????) as a purse.

Sometimes, I have to step back from my photo sessions and do one for ME in the location I want.

Open house at Caroline’s preschool. That was our most recent family photo.

Thursday:

MORE swag from MinuteClinic. I love those guys.

Sitting shotgun in the drop off line for school (which means we got there on time for once!)

Thursdays are for napping.

Friday:

My Friday morning newborn session lived at the end of a dirt road.

I’m going to be SO SAD when it gets too cold to shove the kids out on the porch and tell them not to come back inside.

Saturday:

I’ve been binging on home improvement shows. Caroline has been binging on vintage My Little Ponies.

Playing red light green light at Gillette Castle

Very nice, Connecticut. I approve.

The weather has been abnormally warm all week – even if it did rain today – so the fall colors still haven’t peaked. Good news for next weekend’s photo sessions! And maybe I’ll even have time to take some of my OWN family pictures before Christmas. Miracles do happen! Except it hasn’t happened yet, so don’t hold your breath.

More real blog posts coming soon! Like super soon. Less than 12 hours from now. I have to much to catch up on.

I am officially 2 months into this crazy photography business idea and I am busier and happier than I’ve been in years. Convincing people to pay you to do what you love is old, cliched advice…but it’s repeated so often because it’s true. Never do I think “Oh no, I have a photo session today.” I always, always think “Yes! New people! New location! New light! I am so lucky!”

It’s been a long road to discover what I wanted to be when I grew up. Until I showed up to my first day of Biology 111 in college I was convinced I was going to be a marine biologist. Then I wanted to be a journalist, a tv anchor, a Pilates instructor, a human resources manager, a house flipper, a real estate agent, a thrift shop owner, and some sort of unnamed, unspecific job that involved being semi-famous and doing glamorous stuff all day. I was somewhat successful at a few of those, incredibly unsuccessful at others and never got past the just-dreaming-about-it stage of most. But once the idea to start Ginger Snaps Pictures took over a tiny piece of my brain, I couldn’t let it go.

Am I still terrified on almost a daily basis? Totally. What if the day gets crazy and I flake out on an appointment? What if I drop my camera and it breaks in the middle of a session? What if my client hates every single picture? What if my computer and my back up and my back up back up all fail? What if I’m charging too much? What if I’m charging too little? What if I am the worst photographer ever and everyone is just too nice to tell me?

Believing in myself might be my biggest challenge. It’s hard not to compare myself constantly to other businesses. There is always going to be someone better than I am. Always. My goals are just to work hard, constantly improve and make my clients happy. It’s really not that different from parenting – except the clients are a lot LESS demanding and easier to please! It’s super cheesy to say that because I believe in myself I’m making my dreams come true, but it’s the truth.

Working hard to make your dreams come true no matter what stands in your way is also the lesson in Monsters University.

This is the face I make every time someone wants to hire me.

We’re big Monsters fans in our house – we own the first one and I took the kids to see the second in the theater this summer. We watch a lot of happily-ever-after-type movies, so learning that hard work, determination and doing your best are worthy endeavors too is something I’d like to emphasize. Of course the message is cleverly hidden in an adorable, hilarious movie that my 2 year old, 4 year old and myself all liked equally. Plus I hope the kids can see that lesson in real life as my business grows. Fingers crossed!

You can pre-order your copy of Monsters University here! And to celebrate the release, Disney is going to give one of my readers their very own Monsters University Blu-ray Combo Pack PLUS a $50 Visa gift card. To enter, leave a comment telling me about a time you believed in yourself to achieve your dream.   

Rules:
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This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 10/3/13 – 11/3/13.
Be sure to visit the Monsters University Page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win!

Every morning Evan wakes up and says “What fun stuff are we going to have today?” Luckily, so far, “school” still counts as fun stuff in his book, so when we do school PLUS an adventure his mind is thoroughly blown. It was 95 degrees last Wednesday – not typical in Connecticut – so we all hopped in the car after school and booked it to the shore. I’m sort of ashamed that we’ve lived in Connecticut for eight years and until recently I felt like we lived way too far from the beach to ever go properly. It takes exactly 17 minutes to drive from my door to this park. I’m the worst beach-goer ever.

Although, really, until this summer it’s hardly been worth it with the kids. This was the first time they had ever played happily, independently, and safely while I actually got to RELAX a little bit. I read two pages of a magazine, they ran around in circles, we built and destroyed a bunch of sand castles, Evan and I both swam in the ocean (well, Long Island Sound)(it was still pretty cold), and we all got a little sun-kissed. It was really, really fun and it made me hopeful that vacations will just get more relaxing from here on out.

All hail queen of the beach!

This is a sponsored post from Shutterfly and Global Influence, but all opinions and photos are my own. 

Hello September! There are already a few leaves in my yard, we turned off the a/c and I bought two new throw blankets today. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still 75 degrees out, but I’m totally ready for fall (just like every other blogger, right? Why are we all so obsessed with fall?) To mark the end of summer, I put together a photo book with Shutterfly’s new Photo Story iPad app.

They have lots of cute designs and themes to choose from for almost any occasion

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