How I Manage Our Digital Family Photos

Posted on August 31, 2019September 22, 2019 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

When our oldest was a baby, I was diligent about loading digital photos onto my computer and labeling each with a complicated list of names, places, and our daughter’s age in weeks. Needless to say, this became way too much to keep up with. For one thing, any time the photos were grouped and alphabetized, they became a jumbled mess. Then, of course, as the parenting journey continues, there are way more photos and way less time.

So, after a lot of thought, this is my current system:

–I *try* to delete photos as I go. This is challenging since I dislike being on my phone and there’s little time for it. But if I can delete fuzzy photos or closed-eye pics along the way, it makes photos easier to manage down the road.

–Upload photos onto the computer frequently; I can’t stand keeping them on my phone.

–I use an outdated photo program called Aperture, which I love! I have folders for each year and then monthly “albums” within those. I label photos a group at a time (by month) and put them into an album of the same name. To keep things in easy order I label them this way:
year–# month

So, for example, photos from January 2019 would read like this:
2019-01 January
(I always put a zero in front of months 1-9, so that they will stay in alphabetical order.)

–Special events or trips with lots of photos are labeled in a similar fashion but with an extension.
ex. 2018-09 September-Family Reunion

–I also have folders for any screenshots or misc. photos. (I take a lot of screenshots…) These have labels like, Art, Music, Books, Gift Ideas, Health, Recipes, Other Families, Texts, etc. This helps keep those photos out of our monthly collections.

–I try my best to use programs like Dropbox or Backblaze to make sure our photos are safe, since at this point, they are the things I’d be the most disappointed to lose if something happened to the computer.

–I’ve tried my best at keeping up with family photo albums too, since I promised myself I wouldn’t be working on the kids’ baby albums when they were graduating college. BUT, I totally get it now. I do. It’s super tough, and I want to be spending my time living in the present. I do my best though. I used to order mounds of photos to do scrapbook-type albums, but I couldn’t keep these organized. Now, I create albums on Shutterfly ahead of time (in theory…), so that when “Free Extra Pages” sales come up, I’m ready. Our family albums tend to be BIG. In fact, I had to start breaking the albums into two per year, and now three. eek! But once they’re done, it feels SO great to have them and know that they’re stored online as well. These, of course, also started with way more detail–labels and stories off to the side. Now, they have the months typed at the beginning of each section, and that’s about it. I love that there is the ability to add a title to the spine though. This option is great for our shelf of albums. I try to keep the spines in a consistent format, but I keep changing my mind on them. Currently, they read something like 2017 January-June

Anyway, just thought I’d share some of my photo process, since it seemed to take me awhile to get it sorted out. Hopefully, this can give some of you some ideas to work with for your own systems!

The Twelve Gifts of Birth

Posted on August 9, 2019July 17, 2020 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

The Twelve Gifts of Birth (2001)
By Charlene Costanzo

“At the wondrous moment you were born, as you took your first breath, a great celebration was held in the heavens and twelve magnificent gifts were granted to you.”

I picked this book up years ago, before having children, and I immediately fell in love with it. I wanted to buy a copy for every new parent I could find. This simple, heartfelt book lists twelve gifts granted to us all—hope, courage, love, etc.—and how those gifts will help guide us through life. Each page is accompanied by a hand-colored photograph of children. Every time I read it now, I think not only of our daughter and how much each of these “gifts” resonates with what I want for her as a parent, but also the fact that these are gifts I possess as well. It’s an uplifting, powerful and simple book. The Twelve Gifts of Birth would make a great gift for a new parent, but also for a teen about to venture out into the world.

Ms. Costanzo’s website is amazing! I highly recommend a visit. She has posted inspirational stories, quotes, and ideas. She has a downloadable poster, which I adore. There are reading suggestions, coloring pages, activity ideas, and wonderful ideas for nurturing our children. Free of any ads or links, this is truly just a gift to anyone out there. Her messages and ideas are pure and inspirational.

My Miscarriage

Posted on May 29, 2019November 10, 2022 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

To be honest, before I miscarried, I didn’t want to read or hear anything about the subject. I thought that by merely hearing the word, I’d somehow energetically draw that to me. And as a pregnant mama or a hopeful-someday-mama, that’s the last thing I wanted. So, I skipped chapters of books or I tuned out when people tried to tell me about their experiences with losing a baby. And, now I understand both sides. I understand why some people weren’t quite there for me the way I wanted. Why people dodged me or ignored my experience. I’ve been there too.

Miscarriage can be so different for so many people. There are women who miscarry before they even knew they were pregnant and those that lose their babies right at the end of pregnancy. There are women who miscarry unwanted pregnancies and women who miscarry again and again, who desperately want to be mamas. It’s tempting to say that some of these experiences are harder or easier than others, but I really don’t think that’s anyone’s business to say. Not even, necessarily, the mama’s. I think for me it’s been tempting to compare my experience to others’ and find reasons I shouldn’t be as upset as I was or reasons my experience was tougher than other ones. Miscarriages, like anything, are whatever they are to you. And that can change with time too.

If I’m honest with myself, I knew it was coming. I had the most fleeting moment a couple months before the pregnancy. I remember where I was standing when I knew in my gut I would get pregnant soon, and I knew in my gut, I would miscarry. I knew it as sure as I knew anything, but I tucked it far, far away and continued on.

As soon as I was pregnant I had dreams about eggs. The first dream was beautiful. I held an egg in my two hands. It was painted like the Earth, and I thought to myself in the dream, “I’ve got the whole world in my hands. What will I do with it?”

But then my egg dreams changed. Instead of this image of a whole, precious egg, I dreamed of eggs cracking and breaking and slipping behind furniture. The night before the miscarriage, I had this dream:

There’s an egg carton. I’m putting an egg back in. The rest of the slots are empty. (My daughter) wants to see the egg, but it has crushed down and is oozing out of the shell. The raw egg is even seeping out of the bottom of the carton.

On the morning of the day I miscarried, without any outside, physical indication, I cried to three people that I just didn’t “feel” pregnant anymore. And, I guess I wasn’t.

My miscarriage came at 10 1/2 weeks. I don’t know what miscarriage is like for other women; I only know mine. I bled and bled and bled. Too much. I didn’t want to admit what was happening at first. I didn’t want to go to the far-away hospital. Thank Everything-in-the-Universe though, that I did. My baby’s miscarriage was tied in with my own near-death experience. The ER let me bleed too long. And then when I passed out, suddenly I ranked as needing attention. I woke to a room full of people and IVs being shoved into me at rapid speed. My heart went cold and I looked across the room at my husband and daughter and was too far gone to even see them as a reason to hold on. I hate needles. I’m beyond squeamish about blood. But some sort of life-grasping instinct took hold, because I weakly, but firmly, begged for blood. The trauma nurse was on the way for an emergency transfusion. I pleaded with everyone in there. BLOOD. NOW. FASTER. MORE! And as I watched the first two pints of blood empty into my bloodstream and then the second two, I remember thanking the Lord above for whoever donated that blood and promised myself that whenever I can and wherever I can, I WILL be donating blood. That blood saved my life. I can’t even write this without tears of gratitude. Thank you.

My miscarriage experience will never be about just losing our baby. It will always carry the memories of so much more. Of my own journey into facing death and coming back.

So, when I reflect on my miscarriage, there’s that added bit to it, as there is an added bit for everyone. I feel very lucky that I had announced my second pregnancy early on. Some people wouldn’t have liked that—having to go back and tell everyone the new news: “The baby wasn’t ready. The baby is gone.” But, for me, I couldn’t have done without the support. Women came out of the woodworks sharing their own miscarriage experiences with me. Some talked, some listened. All were helpful. I couldn’t have gotten through without them.

I laid in bed for so many days. So many weeks. I didn’t want to read or talk or watch TV. I didn’t want to do anything. I sobbed and sobbed— loud, shaky, uncontrollable tears for that baby. For days and weeks and months. And, sometimes, I cried for me too. I cried out of fear that my own life had been so close to ending. And in those instances, I mostly cried for our daughter, to think of how it would be for her to lose her mama.

And then one day I stopped lying in bed. I got up, and I wanted change. A big change. I wanted to sell all our possessions and travel the world. I wanted to grab Life and make things happen. At the very least, an adventurous, long road trip. This yearning clashed with reality, and our “big change” got smaller and smaller. We settled on a long-talked-about trip to the East Coast. Not huge, for most, but big enough for us. And all I could think was, “Baby should have been here with us for this.”

I didn’t sleep for months after the miscarriage. Everyone thought it was my sadness about the baby. I love that baby so much. I’ll always remember. But the lack of sleep had way more to do with my own frightful experience during the miscarriage. I’d lie there in a panic, night after night, worried that if I closed my eyes and relaxed, I’d pass out and die in my sleep.

Just about the time I was learning to sleep again, I got pregnant. I had been told for months after the miscarriage by multiple medical professionals that my chances of getting pregnant at my “ripe old age” of 36 were decreasing by the minute, and that if I did “miraculously” get pregnant, I was taking a big gamble with my health and my baby’s. So, on top of my own huge concerns about being pregnant again and my needing time to heal physically and emotionally and my yearning to be a mama to this new baby, I had all those lovely warnings running through my head as well. It had taken all my strength to be patient and wait until I felt healed before trying to get pregnant. And it took an even greater strength to allow the possibility of new heartbreak and, as I saw it, to put my own life on the line again. The first opportunity we “allowed” after the miscarriage though, Baby was ready.

Sometimes I believe that our second baby did her or his job, for whatever the bigger reason, and is with Grandma and Grandpa wherever souls go when they’re done with their bodies. And sometimes I think that little soul hung out and waited for a new body, a body that was healthier and ready to grow, and that our son is that same baby. I change my mind all the time on this. Maybe it doesn’t much matter, but I think about it often.

Nobody really likes to talk about miscarriage, but even less people talk about what it’s like to be pregnant after a miscarriage. I think there are assumptions that the mama will be overjoyed to be pregnant again. But I can’t tell you the tough, confusing, scary, worrisome, sad feelings associated with my third pregnancy. My hormones and emotions were all over the place. And nobody can really understand except the mama going through it. Some people ignored the pregnancy, perhaps worried I’d miscarry again. Some people ignored the past miscarriage, and acted like that second baby had never happened. Some people told me that now that I was pregnant again, I’d forget all about the “other experience.” Some people were convinced I’d never want another baby after what had happened and thought this third baby must have been a “mistake.” None of any of this mattered. Except that it did.

I was very protective of this third baby. Perhaps even more so than my first. I think subsequent babies, in general, get less attention and gifts and excitement. That’s the way it is. But, it hurt my feelings more than I could say. And this was probably due to the fact that I, myself, faced fears and doubts about this baby every single day. Right until the moment he was born, I did everything in my power to put my fears at ease. And even after the midwife helped pull him out, since he was (not surprisingly) stuck in the birth canal, I looked up to see Baby was a boy, and even then, I thought he hadn’t made it. That’s how deeply planted losing a baby had gotten. For days and weeks and months, I felt that fragility about our son’s life. I tried affirmations, meditations, and anything I could think of to trust in our baby and his body, but my miscarriage, along with my tendency to worry and overthink, had wreaked havoc on my faith. I had to work very hard to allow myself to love this baby unconditionally. To go all in and not hold back out of fear that I’d lose him.

It’s only now, a year and a half in, that I’m finally settling in a bit. Our boy doesn’t like to let go of Mama. Ever. And it can be quite frustrating to never, ever have a moment to myself, if I can be honest. But, when I am able to step back and reflect—to think that maybe, just maybe, this is the same soul who had to leave us so suddenly three years ago—I think perhaps he just needs the same time and space to settle in that I, too, have needed. Now that I’ve allowed myself feel a little more trust and faith, I hope I can help share that with our little man. And together we can realize that this time, he gets to stay.

Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day Gift Idea

Posted on May 12, 2019May 5, 2022 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

In my other Mothers’ Day post, I talked about readjusting my Mama Day expectations. But, I wanted to share what has consistently been my favorite gift on Mother’s Day. (Although I did get a Buzz Lightyear sculpted out of fun tack this year, so that’s pretty tough to beat.)

I started this when my daughter was two, I think, and now I have a collection of these, which I treasure. It’s a simple questionnaire asking questions about me. In the past I’ve had other people help do these with her and fill it out. My biggest advice (because I’ve done Father’s Day ones too) is to NOT ask many guiding questions. Kids, especially young kids, tend to latch on to what you’ve said. For instance, if I say, “What’s Dada’s hair like?” and I start listing too many examples without pausing and just seeing what comes, I could be missing out. I might start listing examples, like dark, light, long, short. And she might just agree and say, “Yeah, light.” But if I just pause, my daughter often comes up with her own very creative descriptions that I hadn’t even thought of, like “Dada’s hair is beautiful.” Make sense?

Other tips:

–I try to make sure to NOT redirect her answers too much or laugh at them. If she says she thinks Dada is 17, I simply write it down. A hundred and ninety years old?- Sure. I don’t want her to get self-conscious about the answers as we go.

–Although it can sometimes be tough for a kid to ever be in the right mood for this kind of stuff, I definitely back off when my daughter seems cranky about it. Or, I sneak some of the questions into our daily conversations and jot them down. “What do you think Dada’s favorite place to go is?” etc.

–Last year, I had used Calligraphr (no “e”) to print out blank font sheets, which I had our daughter fill out. So, when I printed out the questionnaire this year, I was able to print it using her font! (Not shown here) If your child is writing, consider building a custom font for projects like this.

Along with the questionnaire, I print out a blank oval frame for our daughter to draw a portrait. I used to draw little borders around them, etc., but now our daughter likes to do this herself. And while our Pinterest/Facebook world usually loves to have preprinted cutesy things to share online, usually prefer something the kids decorate themselves.

This is such a simple gift, and yet, it brings such happy tears and laughter every year. Whether you’re filling one out for a partner or yourself or pulling aside your friend’s kids to do one for her or him, it’s really so worth it.
(Please feel free to use these PDFs for your own priceless gifts, but please do not sell or share, and please link back. Thank you so much!)

Mothers’ Day

Posted on May 12, 2019May 5, 2022 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

These last couple years, Mothers’ Day has become THE number one day I’ve looked forward to most all year. I was trying to figure out why that is. And I realized it’s because every other holiday of the year, as a parent, is just MORE work. Christmas, Easter, 4th of July, even St. Patrick’s Day, just involve more on my to-dos to make the day special for the kids. And while my birthdays are a great chance to reflect on life, they usually go by a bit unnoticed or carry a bit of that, “Oh. My. Goodness. Where did the last six (or insert-your-kids’-ages-here) years go?” sort of wake-up call.

Last year was my first year with two kiddos, and I cannot tell you how much I anticipated this blessed Mama Day “holiday.” I had a list of wishes that I shared with my husband–nothing fancy, but a takeout meal from a certain restaurant or a bath without kids pounding at the door, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, with little ones, those seemingly simple wishes just don’t always happen. So, this Mother’s Day, I’ve set the expectation level very low. And I had this sudden thought this morning that as much as I’d love Mama Day to be all about getting my every wish granted, or at the very least not having to deal with the tantrums and poppy diapers of everyday life, maybe I can reframe the day. Maybe, just maybe, I can see it instead as a day for me to really stop and look at mamahood with new eyes. Perhaps this is my day to really recognize these amazing blessings. To laugh, instead of shout. To hug, instead of scold. To pause and really BE with my family and BE in the role of mama, instead of waiting for them to go to sleep so I can have my “me time.”

Does this mean I don’t still look forward to a day…someday…when I can get an honest to goodness nap or a day without any battles about getting in the car? Well, no. I still think that would be flipping awesome. But, until then, I’m gonna try to see this day for what it is. A day about embracing motherhood–spills, tears, messes, and all.

My friend sent me this article this morning, which cracked me up. I don’t love the website with all its annoying ads, but the cartoons are rather spot on. One of my favorite bits was this: “The slight downside with little kids is that Mothers’ Day is really about opening the cards and gifts. After that, it reverts to a normal Sunday, with the kids needing things from you.” Shannon Hale, of course, has some great thoughts on Mothers’ Day as well.

I also read this sweet article with responses from different mamas about what they would most want for Mamas’ Day. It got me thinking about what my “perfect” day would be like. And, as much as I adore my little munchkins, I gotta say that I would really just love for my kids to be able to hibernate safely for a day so I could catch up on stuff, get more than 3 hours of sleep in a row, go for a walk, read a book, spend time with my husband, work on family albums, have some quiet to think, that kind of thing. Maybe they could hibernate for a whole week…? (And all of this, of course, goes completely opposite from all my waxing poetic above about reframing Mothers’ Day, but there it is.)

Anyway, Happy Mamas’ Day to all you lovely mamas! Hopefully we can all find at least one blissful moment today to take a quiet breath and remember how very blessed we are.

Mama Pins on my Pinterest

P.S. Being someone who is very hung up on getting punctuation correct when my brain is able to, I have always been in conflict about the placement of the apostrophe in Mothers’ Day. Some say it isn’t needed at all, because the day doesn’t actually belong to mothers. I have to disagree. Anyway, above, I’ve tried to use Mother’s Day when referring to my own personal experience with the day and Mothers’ Day when referring to it as a general day for all mamas.