Summer | Brookings, South Dakota Child Photographer

A very wise friend of mine told me that I should post more personal, day to day stuff on my blog. So here I am. :)

Brecken and I spent the day at home together on Monday since I didn't have to work at my part-time job. He goes to daycare three days a week, so at least one day every week we are home together. I wish I could say that we spend that time together doing arts and crafts, or going on adventures, but instead usually those days are spent trying to catch up on housework or running errands--stuff that is boring to Brecken. So on Monday we stayed home, didn't do any housework, and didn't run any errands. We did what Brecken wanted to do--which is play outside.

I swear, I am NOT an outside mom. But somehow, I wound up with an outside kid. Brecken literally would spend every waking minute outside if he could... and he is actually really easy when we are out because he entertains himself and loves it so much, he pretty much never complains. The only problem is, though, that if he's outside I have to be. And like I mentioned, I'm not so much the outside-mom type. It wouldn't be so bad if I could send him outside and then get stuff done in the house while he was out playing--but because he's 3 (he'll turn 4 in August--WOW!) and we don't have a fenced in yard, I have to be on suicide watch. Which entails making sure he doesn't kill himself by walking into traffic, falling down window wells, getting in my car and driving away in it, etc... if it's dangerous, he's going to want to do it.

So by 8:30am Monday morning Brecken and I were already outside for the day. And we didn't go in until 12 hours later, when it was time for Brecken's shower and bed (we even ate supper outside that night, because it was gorgeous out!). Brecken rode his bike, played in the dirt, went on a 4-wheeler ride with Papa, played on the slide and the swing... by the time he was in bed, the kid was WIPED out.

It's easy, as a photographer, to get so caught up in taking photos of other people and their kids that you forget to take them of your own too. And I'm not talking about portrait-type photos--it's the every day ones, to document their little lives before they're big and grown up. So on this Monday, I remembered to. I didn't make him change out of his grubby sweatpants and stained white t-shirt... I didn't make him let me comb & style his hair up into his faux-hawk... I didn't even make him let me clean off the dirt ring around his mouth. I just let him be the messy, dirty, stinky, adorable little boy he is.

And then I took his picture.