first name: Cyndi

age: 40

first name: Erin

age: 31

current city:  Birmingham, AL

living situation: I live in a house with my husband, 21-month old son, and our golden retriever named Atticus. We are expecting a baby in September.

occupation: Photographer, self-employed. My  husband and I are both photographers who run our business together. I shoot mostly kids and family sessions, he does commercial work, and we photograph weddings together. We share all the other gazillion responsibilities of running a business including administrative tasks, communicating with clients, bookkeeping et cetera.

how do you structure your time and space? I primarily care for our son during the day, though our schedule allows us to (somewhat) leisurely start most mornings as a family sharing breakfast, light housekeeping and getting ready for the day. I really enjoy this time together and see it as a luxury we will not always have. Around 8 a.m., my husband goes to work downstairs in our basement office. It really is his office because we’ve discovered that I never work down there. I keep my computer on the bar in our kitchen where I steal moments to check email during the day and then sit to work during our son’s nap and after he’s gone to bed. I rarely feel caught up in my photography work so I constantly feel the pull to be working. I have found that I can really attend to (and enjoy) the time with our son better when we leave the house. We usually spend our mornings going to the library, the grocery store and running various other errands. We’re usually home one morning a week to play (or he plays while I attempt to clean/do laundry). I also attend a weekly Bible study where our son stays in the nursery.

I usually leave the house for three to five photo shoots a week (not including photographing weddings about half the Saturdays of the year). My preference is to do these over one full day (usually Fridays) and one other morning or afternoon. Through trial and error, I found leaving for one entire day during the week was easier for me than trying to schedule shorter blocks of time away on several different days. The latter made me feel like I was constantly switching gears, and I was totally frazzled in all of my roles. I hire a babysitter for most weekdays I leave to shoot, though my husband sometimes spends the time with our son. My mother-in-law takes on most of our working Saturdays, and other family members take the rest. Sometimes I’ll even bring our son with me on a shoot. He enjoys watching the spectacle of my working and the treats I bring to entertain him along the way.

Because we work most Saturdays, we have recently begun protecting Tuesdays as a day for our family to do something fun together – hikes, museums, et cetera. Our business feels established but it seems like we’re constantly still wading through what we all need and what works best for each of us. Even though my husband and I don’t have a lot of intentional date nights, we spend so much of our time together and really do enjoy most of it (we owe a lot of the enjoyment factor to some incredible marriage counseling that we still regularly attend to help us figure out how to work/play/do life together). I don’t take much time for me by myself away from home right now. I haven’t really figured out how to do that well.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? Working from home and mostly creating my own schedule allows me to feel like I spend most of my time with our son. I really enjoy the fact that none of us has to be anywhere most mornings and we can (theoretically) choose when we want to work. One of my main challenges is combating the mom-guilt that seems to always be lurking (work more or work less, organic vegetables or free cookies at Target, cutting out coupons or spending my free time doing things that feel more life-giving to me, mother’s day out or not…). I also struggle with contrasting the affirmation that comes so quickly and easily from my clients with how hard it can seem to get through an evening with my toddler before bedtime. Also, I really wish I had more time for friendships in this season. I miss my closest friends who live in other states and find it hard to have the time, energy and all the rest that’s needed to really cultivate new friendships. 

-what season(s) preceded this one? Before parenthood, we were in the early stages of running our own business full-time from home. In some ways, life felt crazier then because it wasn’t guided by the routine that raising a child demands. We worked all the time; I scheduled photo shoots and meetings whenever clients wanted, which left me with little routine and balance. Our marriage, our home and our business are much healthier now than they were then due to the rhythms we have established. 

-what season(s) might your future hold? It is difficult (and I’m not sure I’m ready) to see beyond our life right now with young children. We hope that our family is still in the beginning phases but we also have lots of dreams and goals for our business. I honestly have no idea how we’re going to balance working and raising a family as we grow (in both ways), and I can easily get very overwhelmed at the possibilities. In the months that we were anticipating our first child, I remember how fearful I was of not being able to balance it all. It hasn’t been easy by any means but we’ve waded through and made progress in figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Remembering that helps me to have hope that through trial and error, we’ll figure out new routines (and how to make enough money to eat).

favorite family activities: Taking walks/being outside together, traveling and seeing new things and places.

favorite solo activities: Reading, looking through home magazines for ideas, talking to my best friends on the phone (in person would be much better).

sources of inspiration: my mom; my husband and my son;  people who are willing to be transparent and real. 

best MakeShift moment: Life feels full of these moments right now. I had so many expectations of what I would be like as a mother and it has been refreshing to let go of a lot of those. Just recently, while I was preparing dinner, I was so happy that my son was occupied while pouring the dog’s water back and forth between the food and water bowls. The mess was huge but well worth it. I regularly give him cups of ice that end up melting all over our hardwood floors, he’s allowed to sit (but not stand) on our coffee table, and I am not ashamed of bribing with suckers or candy when necessary. For me, letting all of these things be okay feels like quite a shift. Also, I have allowed myself to give up cooking most nights. We eat a lot of take-out and it works for us most of the time.

check out erin’s stunning photography at www.nolenphotographyblog.com.