Just me

Today I was thinking about me. Well, me as a thirteen year old. Truth is, it seems like just yesterday. I was suddenly struck with the recollection of just how much things mattered to me. Just silly, little things compared to now, but to thirteen, fourteen year old Jessica, they were earth shattering important. I chuckled  to myself and then a second idea dawned on me. My eight year old is FAR closer to thirteen than I am these days. OMG, I will in a few short years have a thirteen year old of my very own. A few year after that a whole household of teens. How did I get so far from my teenage self with just a blink of an eye?  

Truth is things are not always happy & rosy for us. That's reality of life. I've butted heads far to often with a too close to thirteen year old boy of mine. I will say that every time I think I have this mothering thing down, something new comes up. I laugh now at my naivety of two child, Mama Jess. Oh how easy and simple all my solutions were. As a mama to four now, I see just how complicated things with a tribe of children, can get sometimes. This new pre-teen stage has me reassessing everything I thought I knew again, as does the realization the unknown part, never ends. Honestly what is motherhood other than reassessing, and learning as we go. Trying to hold our heads up when we are down and sharing our glow when we are up. 

The thing is, I want my kids to know thirteen year old Jess. I want them to realize I wasn't always the woman nagging them to be nice to their brother, or clean up their dirty socks. I want them to know my passions and experiences. I want them to know that I was once a thirteen year old girl, who thought her parents were silly and life had to be better, easier, more exciting... somewhere out there- over the rainbow. I want to connect. I've decided to make a new effort to try and relate and remember what it feels like to be a kid. Not just a tired, sometimes overworked mama with a mile long to do list. It's still there inside of me. 

One of the first things to let go of was my "adult" aversion to being photographed lately. {Let's just say 4 kids in 6-ish odd years is not the easiest on the figure} The other day I realized the kids don't see the extra baby weight I see right now. They see their mama who they love. I want them to have pictures to look back on with their mom. So they can chuckle and laugh and pick apart the my hair, and clothing style in 20 years. So, I've been letting the kids take pictures of me-whatever they want, silly, serious, fancy, often out of focus, and depending on the photographer, lacking me in the photo at all.  Sometimes I make silly faces, {oh how luc loves those}, sometimes I smile, but always it's me there. Real, genuine Mama!