I recently signed up for these “stress-free parenting” alerts, which are designed to give parents advice on cutting themselves slack “and getting over the notion of perfect parenting.” A recent one – on, basically, seeing the beauty in all those less-than-perfect pictures of our kids – resonated with me. The mommy blogger wrote:

Once upon a time, I was one of those moms… who strived to capture the perfect picture to proudly send out in December so people could marvel at my beautiful children. One who only shared shots where every child was angelically grinning at the camera and my house was clean and tidy in the background. One whose albums were filled with the idyllic moments that made up approximately one percent of our days. The problem with those pictures, I quickly discovered, is that they don’t represent real life. Real life isn’t picture perfect, especially where children are concerned. Kids are messy and uncooperative and frustrating, as well as adorable and sweet and charming. Shouldn’t we document and share all of that? Years from now, the pictures you’ll appreciate most are the ones that truly reflect your life at any given moment in time. And today, I’m quite sure your friends and family will appreciate a glimpse into the life you really live, rather than a pretend one.

I don’t aim to give an unrealistic portrayal of family life here on the blog (I’ve complained a-plenty about the challenges of raising two little ones), but I do typically only post photos that I consider good (and by good, I mean ones that feature a smiling child or two). And I do admit to getting irritated if the girls won’t smile/pose for photos during outings; I just want to capture the moment, I tell them and Q, but they often don’t care.

And so, in the spirit of the stress-free thing, and the blogger’s advice to capture the good and the bad, I thought I’d share another photo from our recent ballgame. It may appear that Zoe is simply giving her mom (in mid-sentence) a loving hug; in reality, Zoe had just gotten done yelling that NO, she doesn’t want to take a photo with Mommy before walking to the ballpark. And she turned her head away from the camera to make sure Q and I understood that. (The sharing of a photo in which my kid is uncooperative and frustrating? Check!)

-M

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 28th, 2013 at 6:15 pm and is filed under 80. Two kids-April-June13. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.