I’m sure it was because he was over hearing us go back and forth about it.
My girls have grown tired of me always wanting to take photos of them.
The fifteen year old will almost certainly be rolling or closing her eyes with her arms crossed in the picture.
The sixteen year old won’t ever do her real smile.
The eleven year old will just sigh, “Ugh! Mom!”
But a mom just wants a picture or 12. So, sue us.
It’s really not asking that much.
I will argue, “Come on. Just stand there and smile.”
They, in turn, will look like P.O.W.s, about as pleasant as if I’d just waterboarded them.
So, knowing this was our constant battle,
for my birthday this year, my husband, Justin, did what he had to do to get me my dream,
and arranged for a professional family photo session.
Finding out about that session was everything to me, (He DOES listen!) but sent a groan throughout the whole house the second his verbal “save the date” was announced.
One girl asked did that mean she’d have to wear something other than a soccer jersey.
(torture)
One girl’s body language made it really clear she recognized she would be missing a day spent staring at her phone on a couch somewhere next to her boyfriend, and she was going to use her droopy shoulders to let me know exactly how she felt about it.
I paid no mind, however.
I was getting my long-time wish of finally having a current family photo to print on a canvas and place on the shelf above the couch.
As much as I wanted it though, let me just say,
getting that many people to a park in dress clothes when you only have one bathroom is a feat to be documented all by itself;
The fact that the two teenagers and I all had to curl our hair at the same time in front of one very average sized mirror and still showed up smiling was a certifiable Act of God.
- Water to Wine
- Parted the Red Sea
- Family Photos, One Bathroom
In preparation for the fact that I knew someone would say their bad mood was due to low blood sugar, I had packed a bag of snacks that could have fed us all for a week with minimal rationing.
All my husband had to do was squint into the sun as he drove and I was chucking a peanut butter and jelly at him so fast he asked if I was mad.
Be it sunlight or sudden mood shift, I was not having that face.
I know exactly where that face leads, and so “Not today, Satan!”
No one was going to ruin this day.
Family Photos were within my reach without even so much as a self-timer set and my phone precariously propped on the yard waste bin as I ran, like usual.
“I want you all to look happy even if it kills you,” lay ready and waiting, in case they were needed, perched on the tip of my tongue.
Don’t even so much as furrow HALF an eyebrow.
Just eat your peanut butter, Man.
The opening minutes of the session were a little touch-and-go.
I was worried we’d start to crumble a little as we were arranged over and over in avoidance of too much sun, but then, somewhere in the middle of the voices, and the shifting, and the shuffle to get into position, suddenly something happened to me, and my mind took in the real image I would definitely be bridging home:
It was like, for several seconds, I hovered somewhere outside of time, above my own body, without sound, and I saw each individual in my family for whom each one was.
My oldest: There to make sure I got the gift I longed for most.
The stereotypical oldest. There to keep everyone else in line.
She is my gift giver, and was holding my very first grandbaby, who is, of course,
the most ultimate one.
The fifteen year old was smiling beautifully, whispering things to make us all laugh the way she always does; Born to bring delight.
The sixteen year old, smiling gently. Glowing. Glistening.
In her smile I see she has grown and healed so much, and even though the recent years tried to break her, her face was proof they did not.
My eleven year old’s profile flashed glimpses of the young woman she is on the way to becoming: Strong, fierce, and unstoppable.
My mom always says each girl is a different facet of me,
and in that moment, in that way, as the clouds passed the sun, and the grass swayed,
I felt eternal.
In that moment, I hovered above the same delivery room I had given birth to every daughter in, the same room where my granddaughter was born, and saw what each baby girl I’d been handed had become.
The way we were arranged reminded me of all the tables we’ve sat around,
bath times I’ve spent hunched over a tub.
Their skin in the sunlight glowed the same way it did on countless days at the park as they would come near again on a swing, grinning,
“Higher, Mama! Higher!”
and I would reach up, grin back, and push them.
Every pose was like a new melody to a whole other song.
Each girl alone with me,
The girls with just their dad,
Now with the baby, too,
“Now just the four girls standing all together!”
(That song is one that involves a most-pit)
That day in the park that everyone had sighed over,
and narrowly escaped starving through (to hear them speak of), to me, felt like the ultimate gift of love:
The chance to see my family from a distance: The way an artist does with a painting once they’re done.
I saw so much more than us all in dress clothes on a walking-path.
I saw the essence of us.
I swirled with the breeze through a lifetime of memories of raising these daughters, and,
once again, I brushed the cheek of each precious, unique one.
One day my children will hold those very pictures, long after I’m gone, and maybe then they will know why I begged them to stand right there for a second in that light, with that same look.
I hope one day they understand why, out of all the wishes I had for a birthday,
freezing time for a moment was my very top one.
Maybe then they will have their own children they are loving through a difficult stage,
and they will see that sometimes a picture can remind you to keep going;
Your story has only just begun.
Maybe they, too, will have a lot of eyes always rolled at them, and will need something to hold that whispers that there is a purpose behind sticking through every difficult night, every battle;
And maybe then,
when they, too, are standing in the place where I stood,
they will understand that, sometimes a mother sees the picture from far away.
Often a mother floats somewhere above.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
