Celebrate Mom: Take the Picture

You will find no lack of advice for ways to celebrate the mothers in your life this May. There’s the classic breakfast in bed, the ever-popular bouquet of flowers and, of course, the “Oh no. It’s Mother’s Day tomorrow” set of lavender-scented bath products from CVS. Gifts, celebrations and acts of kindness (and their reception) are as varied as the women you mean to honor. Though it may seem daunting, you will have to divine what you know of mom/wife/grandmother and find something that will be appealing to her. With that disclaimer, I would like to submit a suggestion on behalf of my fellow mothers.

If you look at family photos, you often see that everyone is in the frame, save for one key person: Mom. Particularly in candid pictures with your phone or quick moments on the go, it is rare to find her featured. This is because it’s often mothers who take the initiative to capture the moment. The children lined up on the porch on the first day of school. The baby’s first big smile. All of the kids piled on Dad, playing and laughing on the floor. These photos and the memories they carry are priceless treasures, lingering in the minds and hearts of those who capture, keep and share them.

But what happens when the children are grown? When you’re making a slideshow for her retirement party or preparing a photo album to send with your teen to college? You’ll find the pictures of chubby baby hands flinging spaghetti, Easter dresses in the tulips and lots of Daddy reading that same beloved story every night. Will you have any pictures showing Mama scooping baby up to cuddle in the morning? Matching dresses and makeovers on the playroom floor? How will you show her and all the people who love her where she was in those memories, in those early years of burp rags, pretend tea parties and nerf battles around the house?

It’s time to take the challenge of preparing for those moments now.

Take the picture!

Everyone has a different level of budget and time for Mother’s Day, so I have prepared options of this challenge to suit a broad spectrum.

DIY/Daily life: Price range $

Using your smartphone, digital camera or even a Polaroid (if you feel artsy), capture candid moments of daily life, prominently featuring Mom. Brushing hair before school, wrangling baby into pajamas or dozing with the preschooler on the couch – these are all snapshots of what your family cherishes about her. If you’re dressing up for an occasion, be sure to snag a few pictures of her with the kids. Consider even reaching out to a bystander and asking them to take one of you all. When you take a good one, send it to her. Share it with your family. She may be particular about which pictures she feels are more flattering, but she will be touched you made the effort.

Outsource it/Special occasion: Price range $$

Ask around or find a photographer on social media. See if they are offering “mini-sessions,” a less-expensive photo package that requires 15-30 minutes of wrangling kids into poses and yields just enough photos to hang a few on the wall or use on a holiday card. You will get fewer edited proofs back than a full hour-long session, but if you really think about it, how many pictures from a single day will you really display? Frankly, the beauty of mini-sessions is that the longest part of the process is getting everyone dressed and present for the shoot. Give Mom a card with the date and time of the shoot, handling all the details yourself. She will definitely appreciate it.

A family portrait hack

Let every member of the family choose their favorite outfit to wear for pictures. It helps everyone get ready without as much fuss, avoids the hassle of buying coordinating outfits someone is bound to detest and provides a happy visual of that particular time in your lives together. The preschooler in Paw Patrol pajamas, the baby insisting she hold a tatty old bunny in every picture and the way everyone starts laughing when the toddler keeps looking anywhere but the camera are temporary phenomena.

These are such mundane realities right now, but one day, even six months later, you will be in a new phase. The threadbare pajamas will be forgotten, the bunny set on a shelf and the distracted toddler will start cracking potty jokes and grinning with missing teeth. You can’t get that moment back. But you can look at those pictures and remember the way you all felt.

Now that you have pictures of Mom, what can you do with them?

Go through photos with your children and have them pick some to print for a little photo album. Write notes with quotations and memories. Have children sign their names or draw pictures.

Make a photobook on Shutterfly from a free template and print a book to present to Mom. Include notes and personal stories here as well. This book celebrates her.

Make a slideshow or PowerPoint, sprinkling in anecdotes about how you all appreciate her or telling stories about what you want to remember forever. Childrens’ participation in this will be timeless. Asking simple questions and recording responses can yield some very sweet (or very funny) memories.

While every mother is an individual, it’s fairly universal that being memorialized in photos or videos, shared and displayed with care, is a welcome and cherished experience. Don’t wait for Mother’s Day. Start now. You’ll be so glad you did.

Alicia Kobilnyk is an Early Childhood Educator who works with young toddlers. She finds joy and inspiration to write in their cheeky shenanigans, as well as those of her three daughters.