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You are here: Home / Parenting Is Hard Enough / It’s Okay If You Screamed At The Kids Before That “Perfect” Photo

It’s Okay If You Screamed At The Kids Before That “Perfect” Photo

December 2, 2015 By Christine Leave a Comment

I met her on a September night in 2008.

She had kind eyes and a smile on her small face.

I was new at the whole PTA mom thing. She was a seasoned pro, the experienced committee mom.

And she made me feel welcomed at my first PTA meeting.  Included.

Over the course of the first year my son attended elementary school, I watched as she lead the PTA with a kindness that was far from the mean mom stereotype. She gratefully accepted help from parents, worked tirelessly to fill committee positions and she attended every event with a warm smile. And not just an obligatory lip widen when she saw you, either.  Rather, it was a smile that reached her eyes and radiated genuine gratitude.

She was never too busy for a quick smile or a chat in the aisles of the grocery store. And, even after our paths parted ways as her children moved on to middle school, I remembered her kindness to me in those first years fondly.

From time to time, I’d run into her in stores or see her in passing. Sometimes, it was just a wave in the parking lot on a hurried morning of errands. We coexisted in our small town, both busy PTA moms trying to be everything to our families, amidst car pools, soccer practices and never ending piles of laundry.

Through the grapevine, I heard she was given the sentence no mother wants to hear: cancer. And it didn’t look good. Through it all, though, she smiled, even when she was in a hurry at the grocery store, cancer and all. When I saw her about two years into her battle, she was hopeful and filled with faith. The last time I saw her, she smiled at me with tired eyes, body frail, and made light of the bad wig she was wearing.

Last week, I stood, stunned, as I heard her name read at Mass as one of our departed church members.

She died the day before Thanksgiving.

Her smile gone forever.

We weren’t close friends. At best, our relationship could only be described as distant acquaintances and though I hadn’t seen her in many years, hearing the news that a mother with a kind smile was gone hit me hard.

Later that evening, as I quietly watched a video of photos her family had compiled, I was struck by how many of the same photos I have with my kids. Photos in stupid pajamas under the Christmas tree. Arms around them after First Communions.  Cheek to cheek selfies at the beach, at the park, on the couch. Vacations. School plays. Photos of life with kids. Smiles next to the two creatures who mean the most to me in the world.

I have photos of wonderful gatherings with friends. My college roommates have rather damning photos of me behaving very badly at the age of 20.Wedding pictures. Fortieth birthday shenanigans. In almost every photo I have from my thirties, Hubby is either right next to me or the one taking the picture.

My life in pictures shows me, smiling right at the camera, arrogantly documenting another milestone in my world.

And I wondered, would my smile matter to others? Have I smiled at people enough over time that they’d remember me for how I made them feel?

As I reflected about my photos, I thought about the moments the pictures were taken. The twenty seconds before the click of the camera where I’m rolling my eyes to “Hurry up, sit down, let’s take this picture” and the annoyance behind a quick photo as I’m trying to serve Thanksgiving dinner to twenty people. The hurried Back To School photos in front of our front door, where I’m positive they’ll miss the bus because I’ve fussed with Fruit Loop #2’s hair to get it “just right.” Our tendency as mothers is to “Click and Move On” and, because we are the historians of our family history, it falls to us to capture all the memories, all the time.

It’s no wonder we are irritated in pictures.

Is it okay to be capturing the moment but not really be IN the moment? Will my kids remember my irritation and frustration or will they truly remember that amazing afternoon on a Florida beach when they look at our photos? When I saw my friend’s photos, I wondered what the real story was behind her smile. Was she annoyed because her son had a school project to do that afternoon? Was she itching to get to the grocery store because they were out of toilet paper? Was she rolling her eyes just before the camera clicked because her husband said something crass?

The snapshots in our photo albums aren’t necessarily reality, I know. They are an amalgamation of hundreds of moments that lead up to a quick second frozen in time. But, as busy mothers, we are all guilty of hustling and eye rolling to get that perfect family shot. How many times have you been at a Santa display and seen parents trying to get their kids to “Look here.  I said at Mommy. Look. HERE.”?  If I had a dime for every time I gritted my teeth while posed with my kids and said “Sit still, let Daddy take the picture”, I’d probably be sitting on a Jamaican island right now.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. She smiled. And that’s what we see when our loved ones are gone.

My point: Smiles, in their simplicity, make the world a little easier and help us to remember moments in time. Whether genuine or contrived in a moment of “Omg, just frigging sit still for the Easter Bunny”, smiles matter. Especially at the end of a life lived well.

She smiled at me at a PTA meeting in 2008.

And her smile mattered to me.

SmileMatters

 

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Filed Under: Parenting Is Hard Enough, Parenting My Way Tagged With: dying, smiles

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Nurse. Wife. Mom. Runner. Blogger. Writer. Thrift Shop Junkie. Sauvignon Blanc Snob.
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But, 9-year-old Elizabeth told me that living with atopic dermatitis means that itching from the inside out is a way of life for her and, in her words, itchy skin makes her feel “bad” most of the time.
Head to my IG stories to read more about life with #atopicdermatitis and how it affects almost 31 million Americans (10 million of which are kids).
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She’s our last.
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She was the last one to go to kindergarten.
She was the one who napped on the go as her brother attended Mommy and Me classes and soccer practices.
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I did a thing today.
I went to a NASCAR race.
My first.
During a pandemic.
I know, I can't believe it, either.
But, when you are married to a man who eats, sleeps, and breathes cars, eventually you come to a point in your marriage when you realize that a trip to a major speedway is a marital inevitability.
I managed to avoid it for 21 years but today was the day.
And I have thoughts, in no particular order:
1). I was not prepared for the noise of the engines. And by "noise," I mean the constant reverberation deep into your soul for three. solid. hours. Loud does not begin to cover it.
2). I watched 38 cars whizz by me 301 times. I enjoyed seeing #43 drive by 301 times. Car #32? Not so much (#32 finished 35th. I was fine with that).
3). Every single person in the grandstands complied with the mask restrictions. It's not that hard, people. I watched thousands of people do it today. You can, too.
4). We didn't see a single confederate flag. #FistBumpNASCAR 
5). I couldn't hear a thing my family said for three hours. Actually, almost four hours. This was a major bonus.
6). Earplugs are necessary. Again, see #5.
7). The universe did me a solid and provided me with an overcast day as I did my "wifely duty" and pretended to be interested in the parade of cars that monotonously sped by me every thirty seconds. If it had been 100 degrees (like it apparently was last year), this status would be very different.
8). 301 laps takes a really long time. Like, a really long time.
9). I think NASCAR would have a bigger fan base if they served frozé wine and provided charcuterie. Hear me out on this, NASCAR.
10). Watching my husband and Fruit Loop #1 scream at each other (because noise and ear plugs) and gesticulate wildly at whatever was happening on the track while they soaked in their first NASCAR race together made it all worth it. I think. #PleaseLetUsHaveUsedEnoughHandSanitizer.
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143 days. I took this picture 143 days ago. I was 143 days.
I took this picture 143 days ago.
I was in Palm Springs and I had taken a tram ride with @mommybacktalk to San Jacinto National Park.
We hiked several miles for this view and I remember feeling relaxed and free of stress.
We were in PS to attend a conference and the whispers of an unknown virus were starting to swell.
“A virus out of China.”
“There’s no vaccine and it’s highly contagious. It could become a pandemic.”
“Wait. Corona is a beer...”
Though we didn’t shake hands with attendees, for the most part, we went about the business of “normal” life.
At a dinner with @monicagsakala and @mommybacktalk, we threw back glasses of wine and talked long into the night over gourmet macaroni and cheese that tasted like actual heaven on a fork.
We talked about politics, current events, and books we loved. No stories about kids, no griping about husbands. Just intelligent, stimulating conversation that I now realize was going to become a lifeline only a few weeks later.
I have no pictures of that dinner.
Just the memory of being with two good friends when life didn’t feel so fractured.
Now those friends are hours away, whether by car or plane, and I think about that night in CA almost every day.
The me from 143 days ago had no idea what was coming.
The me at the top of the mountain in the picture didn’t know that she should have savored the fresh air more, that she should have relished what it was like to be one in a crowd on a tram headed to scenic vistas.
I’ve been quiet here on IG because everything feels too much.
I’ve been trying to keep my family safe and maintain what’s left of my sanity in a world that feels prickly and dangerous.
I’ve been wearing a mask, using hand sanitizer, and obsessively watching the news for a sign that we are all going to be okay.
I’ve been looking for small pockets of joy in the middle of the dumpster fire that life has become.
And, I’m realizing that we are all climbing one hell of a mountain, together.
And, at some point, the view is going to be gorgeous.
We just have to keep climbing.
No matter how much our legs are telling us it's too hard to go on.
#keepclimbing
My old life was exhausting...what parts of your pr My old life was exhausting...what parts of your pre-quarantine life are you not going back to when your community opens up fully? @mommyneedsalife #quarantinelife #quarantineandchill #lifewithteens #parenting #parentingteens #momtruth #momhumor #momlife #motherhoodunplugged❤️
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“Mom? Can I hang out with my friends tonight? I “Mom? Can I hang out with  my friends tonight? I need a ride.”
Those words seemed to be on auto repeat last summer.
He had a social life.
I had the driver’s license.
He wanted to stay a half hour later.
I gave him all kinds of hell for upending my evening so that he could hang for a bit more with his friends.
But then he bought his car.
And passed his driver’s test not long after.
My car hasn’t found him folding his lanky frame into the passenger seat in almost a year.
I miss seeing him there.
Tonight, I wanted to see my friends for a couple of socially distanced glasses of wine and I didn’t want to drive.
“Hey, I’d like to hang out with my friends tonight. Can you give me a ride?” I said to him.
And of course, he took every opportunity to give me a dose of my own medicine in jest:
“You know, I have plans this evening, too, Mom.”
“I want you outside by 830p because I’ll be waiting.”
“No, you can’t stay til 9, I don’t care what the other moms are doing.”
It was a full circle moment.
After he picked me up and we swung by the local ice cream shop so he could get a treat for him and his sister, we drove home with the windows down on a summer night.
For a few moments, it was like old times.
I’ve missed him, even though we’ve been home together for months in quarantine.
And when Def Leppard blared on the radio and he dialed it up while singing every word, I remembered what it was like to be seventeen. @joe_burke0227 
#lifewithteens #momofteens #quarantinelife #quaranteens #pandemiclife #parentinginquarantine #momtruth #motherhoodunplugged #momofteenslife
We can get new backpacks and lunch boxes, too, rig We can get new backpacks and lunch boxes, too, right? @ellie_schnitt #pandemic2020 #pandemiclife #quarantinelife #quarantineandchill #workfromhomemom #workfromhomelife #momofteens
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