“It won’t always be this hard.”I said that to myself almost every day in the early years of motherhood.The endless fits. The sticky surfaces. The early mornings when we were up before the sun. The constant feeling that I was cleaning something up only to turn around and find it undone again. I loved my children fiercely. But I was tired. And if I'm being completely honest, there were plenty of days when I couldn't wait for that season to be over. I wanted the easier days. I wanted more sleep. I wanted to be able to leave the house without packing half of it with me. I wanted to get to the part where everyone could buckle their own seatbelt and go to the bathroom without help.I wanted to get through it. Then came Cape Cod.
In 2019, we took our first family trip to Cape Cod.
And I almost didn't go. I was so exhausted by that point that cancelling the trip seemed easier than packing everyone up and managing all the chaos that came with traveling with little kids. But I went. Thank God for tender mercies. Somewhere on that beach, completely overwhelmed by little feet and little people, I picked up my camera. At that time in my life, my camera was one of the few things that felt like it was mine. Everything else seemed to be constantly being undone. The clean house was messy again.The food was everywhere. The laundry never ended. The children were always moving. But when I picked up my camera, I could stop for just a second. And I did.I photographed them playing.
I photographed their little feet in the sand. Their messy hair. The way they moved toward one another. The things I probably would have forgotten if I hadn't stopped to capture them. And somehow, I froze a season of our lives that I was so desperate to hurry through. Now, those are some of my most cherished photographs. It's funny how time changes things. Those children aren't those little children anymore. Our yearly pilgrimage to Cape Cod is less chaotic now. There are fewer sticky fingers, fewer things to pack, and considerably fewer people needing help with absolutely everything.
But every year, when we return, there is still that same magic. And when I look back at those photographs from 2019, I don't see the exhaustion first anymore. I see them. I see us. I see a mother who was doing her best.
I see little kids who had no idea how quickly they would grow. I see a family in the middle of an ordinary day that turned out to be anything but ordinary. And I'm so grateful I took the pictures. Maybe that's why I believe so deeply in photographs. Because sometimes we don't realize we're living in a season we'll one day desperately want back. Sometimes motherhood feels like something we're simply trying to survive. We're waiting for the next milestone. We're waiting for more sleep. We're waiting for the tantrums to stop. We're waiting for things to get a little easier. And then one day, we look back and realize those little hands aren't so little anymore. The house is quieter. The mornings are different. And we would give almost anything to hear those little feet running through the house again. That's why I don't think family photography is really about having the perfect family portrait. It's about remembering. It's about preserving the little things that don't seem important enough to photograph at the time. The crooked smiles. The way your child reaches for your hand. The tiny details you don't realize you'll miss. The chaos. The connection. The people you love exactly as they are right now. Because someday, "right now" will be a memory. And maybe the season you're so desperate to get through will become the one you wish you could step back into for just five minutes. I'm so glad I picked up my camera that day in Cape Cod. I'm even more grateful that I get to do the same for other families. To freeze the ordinary moments. To preserve the beautiful, messy, imperfect seasons. To give families photographs that might mean even more to them ten, twenty, or thirty years from now than they do today.Because life keeps moving. But photographs let us hold on. And sometimes, that's the tender mercy. And because I am always behind the camera here is a snap my husband took of us last year. The same beach. The same feet in the sand. The same mom but very different children.
