Throwback Thea!

I haven't posted a #ThrowbackThursday in many years, making the tag itself nostalgic for me. When I saw that a community for throwbacks had been created, I quickly went to my camera roll and flicked my thumb down in lightning fast succession.

Here are some of the photos I found!

2018- Sleep deprived and wonky, I went over to take photos of my daughter Thea with her grandmother. She was only 3 weeks old, and as babies do at that age, she went into hysterics when I changed her into this tiny flapper outfit.

I was frazzled and considering nursing before the photos, distressed at her high pitched crying... Then she just suddenly passed out on this lush fur coat turned backdrop. It taught me a lesson that would turn out to be really important in my motherhood journey...

Sometimes you just need to give things a moment.

Thea is around six months old here, and she's wearing one of my favorite cloth diapers of hers. Although disposable diapers allow you to go longer between changes, and obviously don't require laundry, I decided to cloth diaper anyhow.

I found that I had far less blowouts with cloth, and so this diaper made me laugh. It gave new meaning to gotta catch em all! As it turned out, the amount of laundry was about the same, as her clothes were soiled far less often.

Cloth diapers have resale value, and I'm sitting on maybe 100$ in diapers... Yet it's hard to sell them when the prints are connected to sweet memories for me. It's probably a wacky thing to be sentimental about, but that's how I feeeeel! 😂

Here Thea is about 2. This was a few weeks before covid, and I was already having some life upheaval at this time.

I'd been picking up overtime (which I'd come to thank my luck for when we all found ourselves on unemployment soon after in Ohio) and I was burnt out.

I was doom scrolling facebook as I snuggled Thea, when she asked to take photos. The goofy faces she made changed my perspective in that moment, and this would go on to be one of my favorite photos of us.

When I look back at my first years of parenting a toddler, there were so many times that I killed my happiness by focusing on future problems vs. present bounty.

Memories like this remind me to slow down and appreciate the merits of small things.

This one isn't from too long after. Quarantine has started, and I've manically dyed my hair golden blonde. I'd go on to make many big changes in my life, but for now I was enjoying the time off work the best I could.

Thea and I spent all day walking in the woods, building forts in the living room, and creating new worlds. I was scared at the uncertainty of this new virus, how it would change the world around us all...

I did my best to push these thoughts away though, told myself I could only check the news once a day. I forced myself to focus in on the blessing in the muck.

Kids change so much around two, and I was truly grateful to get to soak that up for a few weeks. To be there when new ideas formed into sentences for Thea was like magic. Looking back at these photos bring me a lot of joy!

^{All photos are my own}

Thea has been 5 since the spring now, and has grown up so much quite rapidly once again! It was fun to look back at some of my memories of her as a baby/ young toddler, and post a throwback again after so long!