Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for 2014 March 2

We are finally getting some good rain. I won't complain that it woke me up at 4:30 in morning, or that I had to run in a downpour to the car from John's office with two coatless kids. It smells fresh and lovely and there are puddles everywhere for jumping. The "river" (which is usually a giant cement ditch) was flowing as fast as I've ever seen it. Hopefully that water stops at some reservoir on its way to the sea.

I did have to go rescue John and Sienna from their walk when they got caught in a downpour. Hah.

Throughout the month of February, I did a little photography project: I took pictures of my shadow whenever I saw it. Since we had a lovely February Summer and were outside a lot, this happened more than you might expect for February (you hear that, groundhog?).

My photo blog post about the pictures is actually called "Shadow of a Mom" because there are some definite themes running through the pictures.

First, with Sienna barely starting to walk for reals, and most of the pictures being taken outside, I am holding her in nearly all of them. Hiking, at the park, at Legoland, at school. Of the 25 pictures I took, Sienna is in 20 of them. The other theme is the "Mom" thing. Most of the pictures are from the park or school pick-up. Holding kids, pushing the stroller, being a packhorse, playing at the park, mini-shadows grabbing onto my legs. There are no pictures of me lounging around by myself outside, probably because that didn't happen. (There is a picture of me lounging around at the park playing with Dalton.)

I won't pretend this is revealing. I know that moms get sucked into their kids and lose a bit of their identity. My identity was more found in the project than lost by the realization of the results. The effort in the creativity of it brought a little piece of me to shine out from between the mini shadows surrounding me.