All

"How do you do it all?" We all so often ask each other.

Short answer is, when I sometimes am on the receiving end,

"I don't."

See, one of the best stories I have as a photographer

is the time I showed up to a shoot for a family,

and with panicked eyes, the mom climbed out of the car to announce they had forgotten their son's pants.

It still makes me laugh every time I think about it.

Because only mommas can relate to all the work of careful coordinating,

laying out of outfits, mix and matching of choices of patterns and solids and accessories,

the attention to stains that might be lingering,

things too big, too small, too something to make the cut for family pictures.

Not that it really matters anyway, but somehow it still does to us.

As if stripes versus plaid would more accurately depict how we as a family function.

As if blues versus greens could more perfectly encompass our adventures.


As if flats versus heels versus boots versus bare feet could forever immortalize all the things we want to remember in the grey years, all the things that pictures can never show, and yet still hold.

And all while making us look like we are doing it all.

And doing it well.

Yea, I was that mom this past week.

Taking on the coordinating of six people.

And then, in the two minutes between the front door and the carseat buckling,

we lost one of our children's shirts.

I had handed it off to someone to keep in the car to avoid the unavoidable drooling and predictable staining that would be Murphey's law,

to help it stay as fresh as could be for as long as could be.

But it was gone before we even left the house.

We found it later wedged underneath one of the carseats, accidentally abandoned when we were loading. But in those moments, I was all of frustrated.

And that is all of an understatement.

Add to that one child falling and skinning his knee in the first five steps but it going unnoticed through his tears until we realized it was his blood all over the front of his daddy's shirt, followed by one member of the family's refusal to stand or walk for nearly the entirety of our time in front of the camera, the screaming baby's headband snapping in half before the first picture even snapped and the duct tape underneath that held my dress in place, and the chicken pox pattern of chiggers we all woke up with the next morning...and well, these aren't even all of the things these pictures don't really show.

It's kind of like that when we hear that question, "how do you do it all?"

As if there is some secret formula, some wonder woman out there who is successfully and smoothly working and living and sharing and learning and mothering and befriending and cleaning and reading and exercising and dieting and creating and crafting and writing and singing and dancing

all while looking good doing it.

But the fact of the matter is, there isn't.

No one is doing it all.

But we're all doing our best in each single moment. 

Trying our best to focus on the good things we're being called to in that single moment, 

knowing full well other things are inevitably going to slip through the cracks in the meantime. 

And it's okay.

Because in order to get the laundry done, we all say "God bless Sesame Street" and mean it with all of our hearts.

And other times, we let the smelly and the clean mingle together in the basket while we read books and do puzzles and brush hair and do Legos.

And still other days we bless Sesame Street, let the smelly and clean mingle and then sit and browse Facebook by ourselves in the closet.

Tell me we all do this.

Because doing it all?

Sometimes that's giving our all

and sometimes that's choosing to let go

and just know it's all

going to be okay.

Much thanks to Lauren Clark for these amazing photos.
She truly had to be a miracle worker to get them.
And that's all of the truth.