So, I bought a selfie stick.
Yup. I’m a 30-year old woman with two kids (and two cats) rocking a 2.72-foot extendable selfie stick complete with a wireless bluetooth remote. Makes you want to follow me on Instagram, right? No worries, you won’t find 100 pics of me doing duck lips, and I have no intentions of creating a book comprised of my tired mug. So why buy a selfie stick? Because I have one, just one, photo of myself pregnant with my daughter.
I felt like a beached whale, but super sweaty. My pregnancy was miserable, itchy, stressful, and scary, and all I could think about was getting my daughter out and safely in my arms. I didn’t want to dwell in the “magic” of pregnancy; I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief in the miracle of birth. So, one. Just one.
And since giving birth to her over four years ago, and then her brother, I can’t say there’s been many more photos of me. Partly because I felt like my post-partum body was on par with Jabba the Hutt’s body, and partly because I’m the picture taker in the family. So we have plenty of adorable photos of my husband with the kids–him wearing a tutu and dancing with our daughter, him being a noble steed for our girl-knight in shining armor, him reading books with our kids crammed on his lap. He’s Super Dad and our photos capture that. And someday when we’re dead and gone, our kids and grandkids and great grandkids will see how awesome and loving he was! But what about Mom? Where was Mom for this picture?
The irony here is that I absolutely treasure family photos. I have photos of my grandparents and great grandparents on display in our house, but none of myself. That is until now. So, move over Kim K. because Kim V. got herself a beast of a selfie stick! Besides the almost three-foot range I can get with this bad boy, it also can turn into a tripod with remote. A mystery no more! Mama’s gonna be IN the photos now! I’m going to capture those special moments lived in the margins of life–camping under the stars in the living room on a Monday, playing bees in the basement on a Wednesday, and goofing off on a Thursday while the sister naps. I want to remember these moments, but I want my kids to remember them too. I want photos of me playing with them, chasing them, hugging and kissing them. I want my kids to look at these photos and see how I invested in them, how I treasured those moments with them, but most of all, I want these photos to say “I love you” long after I can’t.
So I bought a $17 selfie stick. And you should, too.
