Hi Cate. Let me start by saying how awesome you are. Not only are you fabulous personally you have done beautiful things to my core strength and upper arms and turned me into a Pilates zealot. How did you get started doing Pilates?

When I was 16, I hurt my knee playing basketball. My mother, who is a chiropractor, had me work with a therapist at her office on a Pilates Reformer to rehabilitate my knee. My entire body got much stronger from the training, and looking back, I think I was a much better athlete the last year of school because of it. During college, my mother no longer needed the machine, so she let me bring it up to my apartment, and my roommates and I goofed around on it for a few years. After college, I was working as a personal trainer. I found a Pilates certification to take as continuing education credits, and it changed my life. Right away I saw how much more effective Pilates was compared to traditional personal training. I made all my clients switch to Pilates, and haven’t really touched a weight since then. And I’m happy to say that several of those personal training clients are still doing Pilates almost 10 years later. Thanks to my fabulous staff, we’ve been able to service many more clients, and now have three locations, in Hartford, South Windsor, and Glastonbury.

Tell me about Evolution Pilates?

I wish I had a great story about how that began, but really I just opened the business because there was no where else to work. Several gyms offered Pilates back then, but none had equipment, and I really believe the equipment is what makes Pilates so unique. I was 25 when I started the studio, so I had no real business plan, no mission statement, and no idea what I was doing. My parents lent me some money to buy equipment and some IKEA furniture… and I just opened the doors. During the first couple years, I had about 20 clients, and their experience is really what gave the studio a mission and a personality. Currently, Evolution Pilates offers individual training and group classes, to provide an opportunity for more people to afford training. I like to think of the studio as an education center, more than a gym. Our clients learn about how their body’s function, how to move more efficiently and pain free, and for many of them, Pilates becomes a very healing form of exercise, where they get to take a break from the many stressors of our everyday life. We also provide training for Pilates instructors, which is a part of my job I am very passionate about. Our industry has had so much growth in the past 10 years, that it has really diluted the quality of instructors. I like to make sure that anyone who trains under me becomes an excellent instructor, by helping them dig deeper into their understanding of anatomy and learning styles, and communication skills.

Now, I have no idea how you manage running a business the size of Evolution Pilates with a baby. What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced juggling motherhood with business ownership?

Remembering my name. Remembering to put on underwear in the morning. Not letting the kid pull my breasts out in front of my male staff, who can’t handle the breastfeeding. But seriously, everything has seemed a little overwhelming this year. I definitely have had moments when I feel like I’ve taken on a little too much. When I get overwhelmed, I try to remember that this craziness won’t last forever, and that most people are very understanding and supportive of how hard it is to be a new mother. Technology has been my savior with managing the staff and the schedule. Thanks to smart phones and online scheduling, I can do some of my work while breastfeeding. My clients have welcomed the baby at work, which has been the biggest blessing. I really feel lucky that I am able to have her with me at work most of the time, because I am still breastfeeding. The interaction with all my clients has really helped my daughter’s personality blossom. And I believe it has saved me a lot of guilty feeling of abandonment. I am most grateful for the “wind beneath my wings” people… Cami’s dad is really hands-on, and she has two wonderful grandmothers, so I have plenty of help with childcare when I can’t have her with me. My business partner, Kelly, has taken on a lot of my training hours that I’ve had to let go of, and my office manager, Carolyn, has expanded her job responsibilities to include being my brain.

Cami is adorable, of course. Tell me about her. What’s the best thing about being her mother?

This kid just blows me away every day. When I was pregnant, I really underestimated how much I was going to love motherhood. I imagined I would deliver her and go back to work 3 days later, as if nothing had changed. Wow, was I wrong. As soon as she came into this world, all I want to do is hang out with her and watch her grow up. From day one, she has been a really curious spirit, eyes always really alert, taking everything in. As she’s gotten more mobile, she’s turned into a real spitfire. She’s got that good kind of devilish look in her eyes, like she’s always looking for some action. Cami’s is very physical (which isn’t a surprise because her father and I both are), so she spends a lot of her time climbing around on the Pilates equipment… and often eating it. As long as she’s rested and fed, she’s always happy. And I guess that’s really how I get through those overwhelming stressful times. Anytime I’m about to crack, I just take a couple minutes to focus on her, and all the bad stuff melts away. She’s like a little happy pill for me. She makes any obstacle worth overcoming.

What is one thing she does that makes you melt?

She does this hysterical breathing thing that sounds like she’s blowing her nose, but with her nostrils flared. I had no idea what she was doing for the longest time, but now that she can stand, she’ll walk up to my clients and do it in their face while their exercising. I think she’s imitating the forceful exhales we use in Pilates to engage our abs. It is so funny. And if I can pick two things, she also walks around all the time with her arms out and eyebrows raised like she’s saying, “What? What did I do?” That’s pretty hilarious too.

If you could tell her one thing, one bit of wisdom, what would it be?

Never stop trusting yourself. This child was born with courage and curiosity and good instincts, and as long as she trusts herself, she’s going to do great things.

Any advice for other people juggling work and parenthood?

Breathe. And remember that if there’s too much to do, work will still be there tomorrow, but the baby you have today won’t be the same baby anymore. This first year has been so amazing and has flown by so fast. I will never regret the work mistakes I made or the things that fell through the cracks, because it was so much more important to witness this little miracle do her thing.

How embarrassing? I brought a stack of free postcards to the La Leche League conference in April touting the wonders of breasfeeding. I’d like to avoid that this time.

SO I’ll be doing a final proofread then send the file out to the printer. I’ll be giving them out to local breastfeeding professionals. You can order a personal copy as long as my extras hold out.

Downloadable PDF:
Please note that this is made freely available for you to print and distribute at will and am trusting in the basic goodness of people to use it as intended. Please respect that I retain copyright to these images and do not use them individually on your web site or in your materials even for the very best of causes. If you make the download available on your on web site please do it by linking back to this, original, post.

This file is very large so that you can make a very good print – you should be able to send this to a professional printer if you desire and have no issues with resolution, or just print it on the laser printer!

Now and again things happen at photography sessions that make one laugh, though usually not until a bit later after a glass of wine or two. A small sampling…

1. I was doing a very casual portfolio building shoot of a friend’s 3-month old son at my house on my back deck. She took her glasses off to get some pictures holding her child without the specs and my own child grabbed her glasses, broke them, and dropped them under the deck. We had to fish them out (or rather, I did, as she really is basically blind without her glasses) using a hook AFTER we located where they were by peering through the wooden boards at the assorted dead leaves below. Finding patterned brown glasses in dead leaves with almost no light is, well, interesting. I told her to let me pay for new ones. Did she? No. They are STILL taped together and that boy is 18 months old now. Every time I see them I feel glasses-guilt. Lesson learned: don’t ever try to do even the most casual shoot with your kids around. This just doesn’t end well.
2. I did a maternity session for one woman and was doing a set of rapid fire pictures, one after another, of the same pose. When I went back to proof the pictures, as I flipped from one to the next, I realized I could see the baby shifting around inside her womb and causing her abdomen to change shape. I’ve also had a woman have contractions during the shoot; she was a trooper and hiked all over West Hartford Center – in high heeled boots – pausing only briefly during contractions. She admitted she hoped the walking would bring on full labor. No such luck. I did, however, once have a mother go into full labor about 5 hours after our session.
3. Babies pee on my ALL THE TIME. It’s just part of the job and one reason I wear very casual clothes to shoots. Only once, however, did I manage to actually catch an arc of pee in the air when I pushed the shutter RIGHT as the baby peed. If this happens to you I will add a complimentary 4X6 of that shot for you to tuck away until your child’s wedding rehearsal dinner when you can add it to the slideshow of cute childhood pictures. This will be payback for the sleep deprivation.
4. At a wedding I once, camera gear hanging from my neck, jumped down a river bank to grab a blow-away ketubah that the wind had snatched and was attempting to introduce to the water, not 15 minutes after every single person in the family had signed it. This was not in the fine print of “How to be a wedding photographer.” I’ve also helped a bride into her dress, which eliminated any sweet “the bride getting dressed” shots but ensured that she actually DID get zipped into her dress.

I photographed this little beauty on Saturday morning. She was right in the middle of her 3-week growth spurt and made me work for it but time, patience, lots of food, womb sounds and loud shushing resulted in some final sleeping images that are just adorable as well as some great looks of wide eyed wonder.

Of course, that isn’t so bad. I think it’s awfully sweet. In all truth, if I were working out of an actual studio and paying overhead and such I’d be hanging that one as a giant sample on the walls. We had been shooting up in this room for a while and were about to head downstairs to to the “head in hands” shot when big sister and baby brother settled in for a snuggle. I couldn’t resist. And I just love the result.

The head-in-hands is a classic I almost always do. These are mom’s hands; we did a set with each older sister as well for the perfect triptych.

And, despite being such an ancient baby this guy slept like champ too.

I hope you enjoy your sneak peek. The whole gallery should be ready soon!