What does it take to get a perfect picture of a toddler?
1. A bribe of kettle corn
2. …the planets aligning,
3. …and room for about one hundred outtakes on your phone.
Or at least that is what it feels like. Before I had my daughter, I used to ooh and aah over the perfect photos on my Facebook newsfeed. Look at that adorable bow! And her little smile! Now I have seen the behind-the-scenes of how that photo comes to be, and it is not all butterfly kisses.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we expect our photos to look like they were ripped from magazine pages when really we were just visiting the beach? Is it the Facebook likes? The endearing comments that our friends and family members leave? Ok, maybe a little bit. But we have lost touch with why we take pictures in the first place.
On a trip to a local pumpkin patch, I saw an adorable hay bale at the base of tree surrounded by little orange pumpkins just begging to be used in a photo. I tried desperately to get my one year old to sit still, smile, and for-the-love-of-everything-holy keep her finger out of her nose. Spoiler alert: this did not happen. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another mom with her toddler doing to same exact thing. And you know, none of us were having any fun.
I had completely lost the point of taking the picture: to capture the fun we were having. This was not the mom I wanted for my baby. This was not the mom I wanted her to remember. So I made a conscious decision to loosen up.
Guys, it was beautiful.
Do you know what I see in these candid pictures? A squirmy toddler, yes, but it perfectly captures her spirit and energy. Is my hair less than perfect? Is the lighting a little off? Could we be posed better? Yes—but this is what we look like when we are having fun. I see my eyes crinkle and the parentheses-shaped wrinkles that I hate form around my mouth, but they just mean I am genuinely smiling, not simply saying, “Cheese” for the camera. That laugh is real. This moment is real.
I can’t say that I won’t ever try to goad my child into posing perfectly for the camera, but I can say that I will try. I will try to relax and take in these moments. I will try to give her memories of perfect, pure, shining joy instead of perfect pictures.
