{"id":16668,"date":"2013-05-28T18:15:21","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T02:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/?p=16668"},"modified":"2017-07-01T16:07:05","modified_gmt":"2017-07-02T00:07:05","slug":"not-quite-picture-perfect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/?p=16668","title":{"rendered":"Not quite picture perfect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I recently signed up for these \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stress-free parenting\u00e2\u20ac\u009d alerts, which are designed to give parents advice on cutting themselves slack \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and getting over the notion of perfect parenting.&#8221; A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2013\/05\/16\/scary-mommy-challenge-less-than-perfect-_n_3281791.html?utm_hp_ref=stress-less-parenting\">recent one<\/a> &#8211; on, basically, seeing the beauty in all those less-than-perfect pictures of our kids &#8211; resonated with me. The mommy blogger wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Once upon a time, I was one of those moms&#8230; 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t represent real life. Real life <em>isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/em> picture perfect, especially where children are concerned. Kids are messy and uncooperative and frustrating, as well as adorable and sweet and charming. Shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we document and share <em>all<\/em> of that? Years from now, the pictures you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll appreciate most are the ones that truly reflect your life at any given moment in time. And today, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m quite sure your friends and family will appreciate a glimpse into the life you <em>really<\/em> live, rather than a pretend one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I don&#8217;t aim to give an unrealistic\u00c2\u00a0portrayal of family life here on the blog (I&#8217;ve complained a-plenty about the challenges of raising two little ones), but I do typically only post photos that I consider\u00c2\u00a0<em>good<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0(and by good, I mean ones that feature a smiling child or two).\u00c2\u00a0And I do admit\u00c2\u00a0to getting irritated if the girls won&#8217;t smile\/pose for photos\u00c2\u00a0during outings; I just want to capture the moment, I tell them and Q, but they often don&#8217;t care.<\/p>\n<p>And so, in the spirit of the stress-free thing, and the blogger&#8217;s advice to capture the good and the bad, I thought I&#8217;d share another photo from our recent ballgame. It\u00c2\u00a0may appear that\u00c2\u00a0Zoe is\u00c2\u00a0simply giving her mom (in mid-sentence) a loving hug; in reality,\u00c2\u00a0Zoe had\u00c2\u00a0just gotten done yelling\u00c2\u00a0that NO, she <em>doesn&#8217;t<\/em> want to take a photo with Mommy before\u00c2\u00a0walking 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\u00c2\u00a0my kid is uncooperative and frustrating? Check!)<\/p>\n<p>-M<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Zoe-and-Mommy-at-game2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-16677\" title=\"Zoe and Mommy at game2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Zoe-and-Mommy-at-game2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"401\" height=\"301\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Zoe-and-Mommy-at-game2.jpg 401w, http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Zoe-and-Mommy-at-game2-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 401px) 100vw, 401px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently signed up for these \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stress-free parenting\u00e2\u20ac\u009d alerts, which are designed to give parents advice on cutting themselves slack \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and getting over the notion of perfect parenting.&#8221; A recent one &#8211; on, basically, seeing the beauty in all those less-than-perfect pictures of our kids &#8211; resonated with me. The mommy blogger wrote: Once upon [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-82-two-kids-april-june-13"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16668"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25219,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16668\/revisions\/25219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}