This weekend Levi was digging through an old box of vacation photos. You know the kind, bent corners, and a little faded. Back when we printed things instead of just swiping past them.
He pulled one out and just sat down on the floor studying it. It was a photo of the two of us when he was little. He couldn’t have been more than six months old. It was our first beach trip with him. I still had my baby weight. I was exhausted. Probably running on no sleep. I remember feeling puffy. I remember thinking I needed to “get back on track.” You know… that phase we’re always in. Especially after having kids. That pressure to “snap back.” The second I saw the photo, my brain did what brains do.
Why was I sitting like that? Why didn’t I fix my hair? Oh my gosh… I have like five chins. Why on earth did I keep this?
None of that came out of my mouth. Instead, I told him how we were waiting for everyone to finish getting ready so we could go to dinner… and how we always waited until the very last minute to dress him because he would make a mess immediately. I was also trying to keep him occupied and out of the sand so I started playing with my phone to stop him from crawling away. He loves when I tell stories about himself as a baby. All the while, that other conversation was still running quietly in my head.
Then he smiled, like really smiled, and said: “Mom. You look so pretty here.”
And I kind of laughed at first… but it stopped me. Because we were in the same space, looking at the same photo, and having two completely different conversations. Inside my head, I was editing myself. In his world? He was just seeing his mom. He didn’t see angles. He didn’t see weight. He didn’t see anything I was picking apart. He saw the way I was holding him. He saw closeness. He saw love. And I just sat there thinking… thank God I didn’t delete that photo. Because that’s the one he loves. Not the polished ones. Not the “good angle” ones. The one where I was just there. That did something to me.
In a world where social media constantly shows us the most polished pieces of everyone else’s lives, it’s easy to fall into that knee-jerk reaction of criticizing ourselves. We look at photos with our kids and immediately notice our hair, our clothes, our weight…all the things that didn’t feel “perfect” in that moment. And sometimes, because of that, we quietly erase ourselves from the picture. But our kids don’t see those things the way we do.
They see the way we held them.
The way we laughed with them.
The way we were there.
So come hang out in the studio. Be playful with your kids. Be present with them while I capture it. Because one day, these will be the photos they keep, the ones they’ll look back on and say, “Mom, you were so pretty.”
Proof you were there. Proof they were loved.
I’m keeping these sessions limited so each one feels intentional.
What to Wear?
…because I know that’s what’s going on inside your head right now! I’m not looking for perfectly styled outfits, just for real connection. Keeping wardrobe simple (neutrals, denim, bare feet, comfortable pieces) helps the focus stay where it belongs: on the way your kids hold onto you and the way you show up for them.
If you’re interested in creating photos like this with your own family, you can learn more about my family photography sessions in Blairsville, Pennsylvania here.
