Full disclosure, I’m super sentimental. I try really hard to keep this under wraps (but I guess not so much now. Oh boy, here I go). For example, I can sit on the couch lost in a box of childhood photos for hours, Kleenex on lap, getting teary eyed looking at the same photo over and over again that I’ve seen for years. The photos that get me mushy-watery eyed are the few I have with my mom. While I love my dad, he was in almost all of them! It was my mom I wanted to be close to – in the photos and in real life – but she didn’t know that, because we didn’t get along for most of my childhood. I challenged her on everything even before the teen years. I’m sure I broke her in some way. So it’s not a surprise I suppose there are very few photos I have of us together. If I could go back in time, I wish I could tell her, “listen, I’m going to be your difficult child but bear with me, because in the future, I promise to be more loving, understanding and supportive of you. Let’s pretend we get along for the time being so we have something to look back on.” If only life worked this way. That jerky “question everything” attitude I had toward my mom likely won’t happen until the teen years for your kiddos (if it happens, hopefully not). I guess what I’m getting at is either way, try to stay in the photo as much as you can. Now. Tomorrow. And the next day. In the present day, most kids can’t see the big picture of how valuable our time together is with you and how fleeting and temporary these moments might be. In the big picture, you’re mom, our rock, our guiding point, the woman we look up to even when our actions say otherwise; you mean the world to your child even when not being told so. When that camera is aimed in your direction, you might not be feeling it. Trust me, I get it. Sometimes it’s a mood thing or the-way-we-look thing, like our hair resembles a trash bag, our arms have missed a few push ups, we have morning pillow face, or the kids just flat out say no (likely what I did). In all of these up and down moments, try to remember these are memories that years from now, you and your child will sit on the couch and look at and maybe pull out the Kleenex together, like my mom and I did, just the other day. ............... Note to the reader: This might be better titled, “An Apology to My Mom”, but I chose to keep it as is. I come across a lot of moms that hold off on getting their photo taken and this is a gentle reminder to stay in the picture. It’ll be worth it later on. Also, since this was more personal than my norm, I reached out to my mom before publishing this, and her response was, “I wish things had been better between us. Moving forward our time together will be so much more than it has been.” And it’s true, it has been immensely better. Our bond is stronger than ever, it just took us longer than most. So, now we begin the picture taking. I guess it’s true, it’s never too late, but why wait?