I don’t know what happened to our bedtime routine.  We used to have a system.  There were schedules we stuck to with religious fervor.  And this worked for a long time.  It got us from sleepless nights to sleeping through the night.  The stability of routine ensuring that none of us ended up in a pile of tears in the corner.

But now we’ve evolved into a state a chaos.  There’s no schedule, no set bed time, no set agenda of activities.  Sometimes there are baths, sometimes not.  Showers in the morning mean bath time gets traded for Lego time.  Although sometimes bath time and Lego time become one, the plastic bricks making great waterproof entertainment.

Some nights I read stories.  When I voice the character of Toad in Frog and Toad Are Friends, he laughs and smiles.  Other nights he’s treated to “special stories” invented in Daddy’s imagination.  And the kid’s got skills, selling skills, already expertly talking his way into “just one more” story before the lights go out.  Bedtime is never at the same time.

Deep down I know why we’re here.  Now a full-time working mom, I only see him a few hours a day during the week.  That time in the evening before bed is much more precious.  I’m not in as much of a hurry to get him to bed.  I want to relax the rules we once had and just enjoy his company.

There is one constant though.  Bedtime always ends snuggling Zezza.

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Please follow the circle to see what bedtime looks like for my friend Erin.

For a several years, my friend and photographer Amy Gretchen has completed a project she calls “12 of 12.”  Twelve photos taken on the twelfth of each month that together tell the story of that day.  And this year, I decided to join her.

At first I wasn’t sure whether it made sense to do this.  Many times the 12th falls on a work day with me at work and the little man at school.  Surely that doesn’t make for a very exciting story.  But as Amy reminded me when I mentioned this, the stories of these days are just as important to capture and remember.  So this month, even though the 12th fell on a work day, I decided to play along.

But as it turned out, the day did not go as planned.  Instead of a day in the office, it was a dreary day spent juggling emails, phone calls, and a little boy with an eye infection.

Before moving to England, I’d only experienced London as a tourist, taking in its sights and cosmopolitan charms with glee.  So when I first found myself occasionally commuting into London for work, it was exciting, the novelty of an adventure living abroad taking hold.

Five years later, though, I recognize that the reality of commuting into London is much less glamorous. It means waking before dawn, tip-toeing around the house, and blow drying my hair in the reflection of the back door so that I don’t wake my sleeping family.  In the winter, it’s still dark as my train journey begins, the sun barely even breaking the horizon.  It means crowded tube journeys where my face is literally pressed into a stranger’s armpit.  And it means racing along the platform to catch the train home, only to find that the seats are full and I’m left to stand for the hour’s journey home.

But while I’d happily live without most of the journey, there are sometimes moments that make me stop and smile and appreciate the world around me.  The other morning as I stepped off the train and onto the platform, the most stunning golden glow greeted me, basking the platform in its warm and hopeful light.

I stopped for a moment to take in the scene and feel the rays of sunshine as they reached far into the darkness of the station.  I took a few deep breaths and reminded myself that even on bad days, there is always one good thing.  And then I followed my fellow travellers toward the light and the rest of my day.

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Please continue around our little blog circle to find out how Laura caught the light through her lens this month.