Filter and Crop

     Social media. Simultaneously my source for news, entertainment, information and my favorite method of staying connected to friends and family. I, like most of society love to just zone out while scrolling through my Facebook news feed after a long day of adulting.

     I often hear people, usually on Facebook, complain about the various different types of social media user. They complain about those who share too much, those who don't share anything and just creep on other people's pages, those who brag, those who complain and everyone in between. I hear complaints about people who “try to make their life or relationship look perfect,” or brag about the good things that happen to them.

     I am absolutely guilty of coming off as braggy. I know this. Especially since becoming a mom. It's not intentional, not meant to show off or anything like that. It's just that I really am so grateful for my life at the moment. I never thought that I would ever get to be a mother, especially to such a sweet little lovie as my Archer and I just want to shout it from the rooftops that I am loving this adventure of mommyhood so very much. I am the Facebook user whose life looks great on social media, but rest assured anyone who is bothered by this, photo filters only go so far.

     While my Facebook page and Instagram are filled to the brim with perfect pictures of a certain handsome gentleman I know, there are a million other pictures in my life that you will never see.

     You will not always see me in pictures, because I usually look like a homeless person when I am not at work. I am a new mommy and on my off days I wear the traditional garb of my people. Yoga pants and hair clips. My hair is rarely even brushed and I refuse to wear make-up or real pants to make a Target run. The pictures that I do venture into are filtered and cropped within an inch of their lives to allow me to maintain what small shred of dignity that I have left in civilized society. This is not to show off, it is to protect the world from the huge bags under my very sleepy eyes.

     While my baby is very pleasant, he is a human infant and therefore can also be pretty salty if the mood strikes. He melts down, I melt down, but you will have to forgive me, those are not the moments in my life that I choose to document. This is not in an effort to look perfect, but because it is tough to take a picture when you are losing your mind and or crying.

     I post beautiful pictures of my handsome baby boy and they appear quaint and picture perfect to the world. But I know that a minute before that picture was taken I was cussing to myself while wrestling a small but very strong little man to change a flimsy diaper full of poop while he rolled it around on the sofa. A minute after that picture was taken he threw a fit because I wouldn't let him pull my hair. That perfect moment between the chaos is the moment that I choose to share... and remember.

     I am careful to angle pictures so that my house looks clean, or at least uncluttered. Cropping often comes in handy for this very purpose. I find that an artsy looking crop can hide a pile of crap quite effectively when used properly. Perfect smile from my baby boy, but a huge pile of amazon boxes behind him? Crop that shit.

     I don't post pictures of poop explosions or pee fountains. This is not in an effort to look perfect but because when you are up to your elbows in human feces you don't think to snap a new profile pic. I don't post pictures of fancy meals because I don't cook any. Kudos to anyone who does. I don't post breastfeeding pictures to support the normalize breastfeeding cause because I have spent the majority of my 34 years on this planet trying to keep my boobs off of the internet. You will not see pictures, beautifully filtered of me hooked up to my breast pump as a huge hornet tries to fly into my open office window.

     You won't see pictures of the times when I really need for my baby to be quiet and he is being anything but. In those moments a picture is the least of my concerns. You won't see pictures of me struggling to eat a meal with one hand while restraining my child like he is a mental patient with the other because I don't have a third hand with which to take a picture. You won't see pictures of when my bed goes unmade or the laundry just sits helplessly in a basket for days because I just can't get around to folding and putting it away again today. You won't see the dust on my counters or the dishes in my sink. This is not to appear perfect, but because in the checklist of my life those things do not register as super important anymore.

     You won't see pictures of my son's beautiful nursery, cluttered with pirate crap in preparation for his birthday party, or the multiple bags of pump parts that are constantly falling out of my kitchen cabinets because in almost 10 months I still haven't come up with a more efficient way of storing them.

     You won't see pictures of when I am too exhausted to read my son a book, or when I get stuck at work late caring for someone else's child instead of being at home with my own. You will very rarely see pictures of tantrums, his or my own because in those moments we don't need pictures, we need comfort and I prefer to hug Archer than to document him when he is upset.

     You won't see pictures of my kid with his shoes on the wrong feet... again... Or of him trying to eat clumps of cat fur off of my carpet that needs a good vacuuming. You won't see pictures of me trying to balance my son in one arm while I try to pull a fancy dress down over my fat ass with my other arm after feeding him in a small, dirty bathroom stall at an event. You won't see pictures of me picking toys up off of the floor and giving them right back to my son because he is going to throw them a million more times and I have given up on cleaning them every time. The germs won.

     I don't take pictures when my boobs get bit or when they leak in public. I don't post pictures of struggling to retain some of my modesty when I try to stay covered while feeding him and he will have none of it. I don't post pictures of my broken heart everyday when I leave him behind to go off to work.

     I choose to document the fun days instead of the days when I take him for blood work and he gets stuck in both arms because the phlebotomist couldn't find a vein in his chubby little arms. I don't choose to document how I left the hospital in tears that day too because it just broke my heart to have to hold him down while they tried to get blood.

     What you will see however, is a smiling, happy, beautiful baby boy. This is not to be fake, or to pretend that my life is somehow perfect. It isn't perfect. But it is to celebrate the fleeting moments of my life that are.

     I refuse to complain about my child's worst days because he isn't old enough to explain or defend himself and he never throws me under the bus when I fall short, which is often. I also would never want him to do a search of his mommy's past posts and think that I was anything other than thrilled to be his mommy, even when things did not go smoothly or as I had hoped or planned.

     I smile when I see the posts about how some people try to make their lives look perfect, because I don't think that any of us are trying to pretend to be perfect. We are pretending to be sane. We are embracing the fact that our little ones are only going to be little for a short time and we are proud of each and every accomplishment that they achieve, even if today that accomplishment is just being stunningly adorable.

     We all do it. We all try to show our best face to the world and to be honest, what's wrong with that? What's wrong with sharing the positive and putting that vibe out into the universe as opposed to something negative or ugly? As long as we give each other that little wink from mommy to mommy that says, “You're really a mess? Okay. Good, me too. Here, take my picture by this organic farm. Use a filter.”