MY PERFECT MOTHER’S DAY GIFT

Hello mums and dads. It’s that time of year again…that time when dads start the frantic hunt for the perfect Mother’s Day gift while the mums wait and hope for the best. 🙂

Since dads out there would really appreciate some help in finding out what we might want, I decided to write about what MY prefect Mother’s Day present looks like. Maybe yours is similar…

As you all know by now, we have five kids: three on the young side and 2 on the older side (the oldest will soon leave the house in pursue of her dreams and the youngest is still fighting to get out of nappies). Yes, our hands are full, but so are our hearts.

This past year I went through our family photos and one thing left me in tears: not only am I am mostly absent from our family photos, but we don’t have any photos of both me and my husband in the frame, at the same time, parenting – which we have been doing for a big chunk of our marriage. It actually hurt looking back and finding very few photos with me in the frame What’s worse is that none of the photos are of real-life moments; most of them are posed or directed in some way or other.

If you wonder why it matters that they are posed, I will tell you: I feel that I am missing any tangible proof of my role as a mum. The moments that define me as the mum are not there. There are no true hugs, kisses, story time moments, crazy bath times, changing a poopie nappy for the 10th time that day, cooking while trying to entertain 2 or 3 kids, teaching my kids to write, drawing and painting with them, working while nursing my baby… all these kind of moments and many more are a true representation of what I am and was as a mum. But they are not there…

Yes, I know, people throughout the history of the world had made it through and have been just fine without those images, but we live in a different time. We have access to the means of recording these moments and we don’t take advantage of it. We can preserve them so that when we feel down, we can go back to them and feel refreshed. We can preserve them so that we can share them with our kids. That way they could see how much they were loved and cared for, not only through the happy days and all the holidays, but also in the midst of chaos, sleepless nights and utter exhaustion.

So… MY Perfect Mother’s day present is not an object, but an experience. I want the gift of a DAY IN THE LIFE SESSION every year. I want a photographer around us for a normal day, recording our everyday life. This way I get to be in photos that tell a story: my story as a mum and our story as a family. As much as I want photos with me in them, I also want photos with me and my husband both in them. We are a team and our family is what it is today because of both of our efforts and commitment to each other and to our kids. We both deserve to have beautiful photographs of us as parents.

Now that you know my perfect gift, I would love to know what yours is! Feel free to share in the comments below – or just send me a message!