Put On A Happy Face!

I take thousands of pictures a year, but save for a few self- portrait head shots meant for facebook, you're pretty hard pressed to find a picture of me. I'm fine with this, because I am one of those people who dreads looking at a full body picture of myself. I immediately scan to my mid section, and then up to the area above my mid-section, and then to my big hair. Being "voluptuous" is a source of frustration for me, so I'm happy to be on the other side of the camera.  The problem is that there are no pictures of our family, together. This makes people like my elderly grandmother very sad, and I don't like to make my grandmother sad.  Today we put on our very best Gap clothes, set the timer, and said cheese (about 100 times).  There was no clear winner, except for the totally unacceptable picture above, so I chose this one:

Jasper's eyes are mostly closed and my hair is living large, but it's good enough.  I recently read an essay by Allison Tate on The Huffington Post, about the phenomenon of not wanting to be photographed after having kids. It kind of struck me, I've been hiding from the camera, while celebrating the fresh faces of my children. I used to love seeing pictures of myself, as evidenced by the stacks of high school and college pictures I have lying around. Her point was that despite our own hang-ups about our bodies, and aging faces, our kids don't care. They will want to see pictures of us when we were younger, playing with them, being their parents, even with a muffin top. I suspect that I will want to see them too. It gives me pause to think about what I'm really hiding from anyway. Something to think about.  

Have a lovely weekend. Get out there and do something fun! I'll be going to Bar Tartine with my special ladies tonight...  

xo, Heather