Spending my time mostly at home since the pandemic & my daughter’s birth, I decided to come back to where I feel most sane; photography & journaling. This first post is a sign of me showing up for myself, seeking, finding & seeing me as me. This is the first time of me holding a camera for one night, recording my daughter’s actions before bed, and the next morning.
Sarina’s bedtime routine at 11 months 17 days includes:
Dancing on the bed
Learning to stand up
Insisting to walk outside the bedroom
Kicking and screaming
Drinking milk (while gently caressing my hand)
Laughing & joking like adults
Karaoke-ing Japanese songs with Papa
Performing & recapping everything she learned during the day
She learns so many things so fast by observing and learning it herself, I tried my best to write it down. (I do keep a written journal, but at this rate she would learn faster than I have the time to keep note of it.)
Sarina’s favorite tunes to sing to before bed:
- Johnny Johnny Yes Papa
(where she sings over every “Papa” and “Haha”) - Cicak-Cicak di Dinding
(Looking around to see if there is any cicak around,
“Hap” is her part, while turning her hand to a fist) - Wheels on the Bus
(she loves filling the ‘shh shh shh’ during mommy part) - Ya amplop! (oh my God!) with hands on her head is something she accidentally learns because we say that phrase a lot when she does borderline silly – experimental – naughty things, intead of overreacting.
- Current favorite is Hello Dangdut, where she performs the choreo she made herself.
Coming from a totally online place and seeing everyone around me be so online all the time, I developed a certain self-awareness to push myself to live in the moment, to be present, leave my phone at home. After years of developing a certain ick to putting camera in front of loved ones and blurring out the boundary of personal and public space, I think it’s time to relax and relearn.
This space and exercise is sort of my rehabilitation to that specific repulsion, that I can still have a keepsake to come back to, while still maintaining a healthy boundary. I am giving myself a designated space so I can write and keep memories of my daughter, our family, and my personal, motherhood journey, and you are welcomed in this personal space.
