OKLAHOMA CITY/EDMOND OKLAHOMA NEWBORN, CHILD AND FAMILY DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHER
Mother's Day.
It's not always bouquets and breakfast in bed, is it?
Just like motherhood isn't always adorable milestones and clean, well behaved children.
No. It's hard. Physically. Emotionally. Mentally. Financially. Everything-about-it-ally.
I don't speak from experience, but I have plenty of amazing role models in my life who I eye with both envy and awe, and for me to adequately cover this momma in my life you're about to meet, I'd need a cabin in the woods and a book publisher to get this story right. I don't have either of those, but I do have almost 10 years of friendship where I've personally witnessed her handle motherhood LIKE A BOSS.
She is SO great at the fun stuff and works even harder at the hard stuff. She's a servant of the most selfless love.
She's a working mom of two kids involved in multiple sports, teams, and dance activities. Sounds like the average Mom, except her husband is a first responder which means multiple days a week she's a single mom, juggling all of the activities, school, meals, chores, and the curveballs parenting throws at 100mph.
I know you can relate to this. How do y'all do it?
I only hope I can soon join the ranks of motherhood. I know it'll be the most exhausting job I'll ever hold, but in my eyes, holding the title of motherhood can never be beat.
Just serving as the family taxi service is taxing enough. Add in the insanity of a family of four's schedules and I'm drinking a glass of wine just for solidarity reasons.
I mean, you moms are B U S Y.
Wake the kids. Feed the kids. Feed yourself (maybe?). Deliver the children to two different schools. Jet (or crawl) across town to the city in wicked traffic and work work work. Magically prioritize time for the gym for a killer workout. Race across town to grab child #1 for a baseball game and making sure child #2 is ready for dance. Drop off child #1 at the fields, deliver child #2 to the studio and hurry back to holler your heart out at the ballfields. When dance is done, grab child #2 and find dinner. Pick up stinky, sweaty, man-child #1 from the game and feed him. Head home to organize showers and schoolwork and attempt a decent bedtime. Eventually, you'll eat a quick, healthy dinner (because you're not about that fast food life), take a shower, make lunches, switch the laundry over, prep for the next day, and fall into bed restless, quickly realizing it's nearly the next day already.
She spends a hefty portion of her day behind the wheel, with and without her kids. Hilarious shenanigans occur in those seats along with serious conversations she starts to maintain a healthy, open relationship with her kids. She is always working with one intention: to raise kind kids.
So when Mother's Day falls on a day when Chad's on shift, Janna makes the most of it. She gets back in the car with the kids, carts them to their favorite local pizza joint, and brings Mother's Day to the fire station. The chaos of their calendar rarely allows complete kinship, so for once, they're together as a family.
It's no spa day celebration. It's just the sacrificing reality of this selfless job as mom.
And let me guess?
Y'all wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
