Kimberly Hill Photography

The Newlyweds

Well, not REALLY but that's what the kids and grandkids kept calling them.

A picture speaks a thousand words.

The lunch dates

This week, I've been been able to squeeze in lunch dates with two friends - one old, one new.

Yesterday, I met fellow Myrtle Beach photographer Chris Koppel for lunch at California Dreaming. Chris contacted me out of the blue one day and said she'd love to get together and that day had finally arrived. Over chicken Caesar salads (add tomatoes, please) and honey butter drizzled croissants, we talked shop and then moved onto important things like motherhood, balancing business and personal lives, how it feels to have a child grow up, and finding a great bra.

Today, I just returned home from lunch with Diana Thompson, an adored client-turned-friend and owner of the Surfside Beach Chick-fil-A, and her 5-week old son (the adorable Clemson/CFA baby on my splash page). At Salad Creations, we talked about motherhood, balancing business and personal lives, how it feels to have a child grow up, and breastfeeding. Then we moved on to Bruster's for ice cream (holy cow, how did I miss this place?!?) where we talked about college dorms, how getting great food is even better when you have a coupon, and taking pictures of our kids.

Connecting with other women is vitally important, especially when we have motherhood and running a business in common. Our kids are different ages, our businesses may differ, and I'm sure there's plenty we don't agree on, but a common thread... a shared spirit... still runs through it (and us) all.

I am blessed.

On Being Mom

"On Being Mom" by Anna Quindlen

If not for the photographs, I might have a hard time believing they ever existed. The pensive infant with the swipe of dark bangs and the blackbutton eyes of a Raggedy Andy doll. The placid baby with the yellow ringlets and the high piping voice. The sturdy toddler with the lower lip that curled into an apostrophe above her chin.

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories.

What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations -- what they taught me was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One boy is toilet trained at 3, his brother at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.

I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month-old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language - mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, What did you get wrong? (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts.

It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

Thanks to Pam of Casual Moments for sharing this on her blog and reminding me about this fabulous essay! All I have to do is look at my two grown sons to realize how precious and fleeting my time with my daughter is and to take that as a reminder to slow down and savor every moment.

This pose may've been all fun and games now, but one day I'll turn around and she'll be posing for her senior portraits for real!

Catie & Nick's E-Session

Since Nick drove up from Georgia and Catie drove down from Charlotte, our schedule was a bit tight. However, when this is your first frame, you know the session's going to go well...

They were such a fun couple (and being gorgeous doesn't hurt!) and I had a great time working with them getting casual, real engagement images for them to share with their families.

Catie

Sorry, guys... she's taken (in a big and handsome way). But isn't she GORGEOUS?

More from Catie & Nick's e-session later this week!

PG-rated humor

Notice their family will vacation in Myrtle Beach ::snort::

The Sad Truth About Relationships

Thanks for the link, Sarah. I'm immediately sending it on to all of my single friends  ;)

Update on Bryce

Bryce had his finger surgery on Tuesday and though it's giving him quite a bit of discomfort, he did well. Now his head stitches are out and he can return to school on Monday.

Thank you again for all of the phone calls and emails. They were greatly appreciated!

Wide open... and patience

Courtney greeted me with "he's wide open" and she's right, he was. You see, Cameron is 3, loves to run, and is curious about everything around him. Everything. Every.thing. E.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. Smiling, sweet, happy, a truly joyful child... and wide open.

Courtney never lost her patience with him. Never raised her voice, never spoke harshly. She played, teased, engaged and reveled in Cameron being Cameron. Wide open.

I'm impressed.

Oh, Jenni... THEY'RE HERE!!

My poor friend and fellow photographer Jenni T. has been waiting SO patiently to see more images than just the GORGEOUS one of her and her husband I sneak peeked here. Was it worth the wait, m'dear?