The Mom Stays in the Picture

Until the Mommy Shorts blog launched the "Reward Your Selfie" campaign just before Mother's Day, I hadn't realized how rarely I appeared in photos with my little dude.  As a photographer, it's easy to stay behind the camera, and as a mom, I now know it happens even more.

I sometimes struggle with accepting my looks, and on my more tired days, I don't feel the need to make a lasting record of the bags under my eyes or my hair that needs a trim but I chose a nap over a haircut the last five times I had the chance to address that.  

But then someone said "camera" and "contest" in the same sentence, and I had to get involved.  Each day for around two weeks, I took a "selfie" with my son.  I may not have won any oft the prizes (there's slight chance that's because my Instagram account is private...oops)., but I feel like my life has changed.

At the end of the project, not only did I feel better about being on camera, but my son had actually started asking for a "Picture, Mama," every day. Sometimes he wanted a picture with his plastic horsey (which looks oddly like a butt, but whatever), but most often, he wanted a picture with meeee.

I'm not a picture-perfect beauty, but I want my son to know that beauty comes in many different forms.  I want him to see that I respect and honor myself, so that he will respect and honor women as he gets older.  And I want him to know that I love him and am a solid presence in his life. When he looks back at photo albums, I want him to say, "There's my mom," not, "Where's my mom?"

So, from here on out, I'm getting in more pictures - with my son, with my husband, with my life.