I made a human.
Three actually.
By the grace of God and biology my body coddled and nurtured a human being, releasing it from my womb at the moment it could breathe air.
But my job was far from done.
Breathing alone wasn’t enough to sustain life.
Things like eating and burping and sleeping in the exact right quantities needed to be tended to. Each miraculous milestone followed by the anxiety of achieving the next.
After they learned how to not spit up their meal I needed to focus on things like reading and puberty and social dynamics and politics and being conscientious and being kind and being a good friend and not over-eating and under-sleeping.
All of these little life skills taught over and over again.
With the constant, age old hope that they will be decent human beings. That they will raise another generation of decent human beings.
I am flawed.
How can I not pass on my flaws to my children? As inevitable as the tide and the sunrise.
The best I can do is laugh with them, own my mistakes and ask for forgiveness.
Oh and love them, with all my human being-ness. 
Tagged: B&W photography, childhood, Mexico, motherhood, photography, Sayulita, travel
God bless Oliver, a boy with wit, silliness and sincerity. Observant and inquisitive, noticing all the details that make him thoughtful and make him worry.
He’s been ordering off of the adult menu since he was nine, finding the kids menu too limiting for his refined palette. His tastes, humor and empathy are beyond his years. I often ask his opinion when I’m struggling with something at work. He leans into these discussions and no matter how complex my question he always manages to share something insightful.
