first name: Melissa

age: 34 

current city: Memphis

living situation: loft apartment with husband and daughter (3 years old)

occupation: professional photographer, freelance writer

how do you structure your time and space? Currently we live in a loft, which makes the division of labor a bit tricky. When mom is on the computer, she is also in her daughter’s play space, so it makes working from home challenging. My daughter attends a daycare twice a week for a 6 hour stretches; even with his help, we often find ourselves doing our work after she goes to bed, so I often feel like I never see my husband even if he’s just across the living room! We have ultimately decided to send her to school everyday; she is intensely social, so I don’t feel as guilty about this decision as I once did. I’ve made sure to spend an hour out of her school time for pilates; that’s my church. 

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? trying to stay present as my daughter’s creativity and imagination blossoms; often she wants to play some hybrid role playing game, and I’m trying not to think about client emails I need to return

-what season(s) might your future hold? Spring – renewal for both of us. Also, my husband and I are blessed with fairly flexible schedules (read: no schedule) due to our freelance jobs. But the flip side of this is little structure and chaotic child care. A lot of my day consists of trying to steal time to edit photos while playing dress up with my daughter. I had always envisioned having two kids, but now I can’t imagine willingly inviting more chaos into our lives. We both have siblings we love dearly, and I’m saddened by the thought of my daughter not having a brother or sister, but I get secretly giddy by the thought of how much more we could do as a family of 3: travel easier, afford to travel easier. Our daughter would be that cool kid who gets to bring a friend along for awesome excursions. We wouldn’t have to split further our already fractured attention spans between 2 kids. Even better, more time with the husband, and time to revel in being his girl, not just the mama of his kids. But even the act of writing this makes me feel guilty. Another awesome kid? Why wouldn’t we try to move heaven and earth and our schedules around to have one of those?

favorite family activities: walking by the river, Rock N Romp, going to Miss Cordelia’s for groceries and a cookie 

favorite solo activities: pilates, writing at Republic Coffee, taking pictures of downtown Memphis

sources of inspiration: dinner with friends, a glass of wine while cooking dinner

best MakeShift moment: Typing an entry for a fiction contest one handed while rocking my daughter and my dog throwing up at my feet. I can’t say handled the situation gracefully, but I got the sucker done, rocked the kid to sleep and cleaned up the puke. All in a day’s work.  

the first picture was taken at a book signing for melissa’s first book, Veiled Remarks: A Curious Compendium for the Nuptually Inclined. check out melissa’s blog for her fabulous photography and well-crafted tales: http://www.modernmedusahead.blogspot.