Airing Out Your Dirty Laundry

March 4, 2025

Airing Out Your Dirty Laundry

I poured myself a glass of wine at 3 o'clock in the afternoon because it's a good 5 hours before bedtime when I breastfeed my son. My husband was outside and my son was playing quietly in the living room. I knew my husband wouldn't care, but regardless I didn't want him to give me a look or make a judgmental remark. I just wanted to relax a little in the afternoon. My baby walks over and says, "Cheers Mommy." I didn't even know he knew the expression. He didn't ask to try it, he just let me have it. His 20 month-old voice took all the illicit behavior out of what I was doing. I wasn't drinking alone anymore, I was just acting like an adult. I snapped a photo of us and my wine and sent it to my husband with the memo, "Cheers". This moment is saved in our Happy Days book. The beauty about kids is that they will love you whether you are being "good" or "bad". It's a scary thought, that you could unwillingly unleash all sorts of trauma onto their little souls, but there's a freedom in knowing that your child loves and admires you, warts and all. You can be a good mom AND enjoy a glass of wine in the afternoon.

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Write To Your Baby

Open up a journal, your notes app, or a new email account for your baby and write to them. It doesn't matter how, just write. Write about them. Write about you and your lives together. This will be a beautiful reminder of how much you cared.

Your baby learns a new word or phrase that surprises you. Describe the moment they say it, how you felt, and what it made you realize about their growing understanding of the world.

Write about a time when your child witnessed something personal about you, and how their reaction changed your own perspective.

Describe a moment of quiet, a small habit, or a personal ritual.

Parenting comes with so many rules and expectations. Write about a time when your child’s innocence reminded you that you don’t have to be perfect, just present.

Photo Opportunities

We can take thousands of photos of our kids, and they are all accessible in the palm of our hands. This is far different from the handful of photo albums my parents have of me growing up as a child. There are one or two photos that stick out in my mind from when I was a child, like the time I was basking in the sun on a sandy beach with my bum out and three of my cheeks planted in the sandy lawn. I remember it because A. I was so embarrassed that they had a naked photo of me and B. it is a remarkably good photo considering my parents never cared to become good at the craft. This latter reason is probably why we had so few photos growing up, they would've rather just lived life than worried about documenting it. It was a different time, there were no iPhones. Now that I'm an adult, they tell me that they wish they had more photos of me growing up. They wish they had taken more photos and wrote down all things that we did as a family because their memory is gone. It doesn't exist.

So I hope you take photos of your kids, of your home, of your life. Here's few things that made my naked baby at the beach photo so good.

Natural Light: Soft, natural light is best, so take photos near a window or outdoors in the morning or late afternoon to avoid harsh shadows. If there is bright light, try to incorporate the dramatic lighting as an artistic element in the photo.

Keep It Simple: Avoid cluttered backgrounds that can distract from the child. A clean and simple background keeps the focus on them.

Photo credit Hitesh Choudhary

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