I have said it time and time again… it’s not always perfect.  As we scroll back through our photos on our phones, we see countless moments of smiling kids.  Those big happy faces as they swing at the park, as they open birthday gifts, those goofy grins as they look up at the camera. All moments we capture with a photo.

However, how about those moments were we don’t know how we are going to get through the next hour. The moments where we start to count down the hours until we can put them to bed.  We don’t have those moments capture on our phones. We don’t have the epic melt downs, the drama over not having the right pajamas clean, the yelling, the screaming captured.

 

I’m one of those moms where when shit hits the fan, I grab my camera. It’s not to shame my kids later on, its so I remember those types of moments too. I want to remember the struggles we had, the ups and downs of our days. I want to be able to laugh later if I can’t laugh in the moment. It’s the mystical side of parenting.

Let’s face it, we do to look back and laugh at those struggles.  We all have looked back at those first few years of motherhood and wonder how did we survive? We recall those moments of massive blow outs, and the countless nights of a crying baby as you were so tired you could not muster up enough energy to chew your food. The time at the doctor’s office were the baby pooped all over the scale. The bout of morning sickness that left you so sick that you let your toddler figure paint with shampoo in the bath tub so you could hug the toilet.  Ok, maybe it’s just me.

I want to remember those moments too because let’s face it, that is motherhood.  That is the realistic view of motherhood.  It’s not about the smiling kids in their church clothes that you post on Facebook or the photos of baking cookies that you text to your mom. That is just a fleeting moment of motherhood. The real photos that tell you what life as a mom is really all about.