The best part of being a creative, is getting to work on projects for which you can dream up the most fun scenarios and then bring them to life. I love taking all the moving pieces and putting them together to tell a story. This Mother’s Day themed shoot at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco was one of those projects, making me stop for a second and reflect that it has been over 10 years since I started my content creator journey. My girls were just babies, and the juggling of work life, mom life, and content creator side hustle (that’s all it was at the time) was just A LOT. Now they are 11 and 9 and I spend a lot of time savoring the little moments with them. Knowing now how quickly it all goes. So of course, shooting a Mother’s Day campaign really drives all those thoughts home. I feel so thankful to be doing this job full time, and being able to show my girls that they can plant a seed and watch it grow into something they were at one time only dreaming of. So thankful that I get to spend so much more time with them now. But that feeling of questioning yourself as a mother never really goes away, no matter how hard we strive to be our very best mom selves each day.
Us mamas are constantly perfecting the balancing act, and beating ourselves up on those days where we think we fall short. For me, it’s always feeling like I am not doing enough, not having enough hours in the day to be the best mom I can be and many of my friends feel the same. So, how about on Mother’s Day, we give ourselves 24 hours to let go of any mom guilt and just have a day where we think about what an amazing job we are doing every day and let ourselves just be. And while we’re at it, let’s picture what our perfect little “mama me” day might look like if we could somehow find the time to make it happen.
For me that day would include getting to do all the things that are forever on my list. Reading the numerous books on my nightstand that I rarely get to open, watching a second episode of a show I started and dying to watch but never quite get to (yes, I’m talking about you Palm Royale!), and let’s throw in some lounging around time, possibly in pjs and cute slippers, in the middle of the day! And what’s that? A glass of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries? Yes please! Who’s with me?!
As my photographer Chris and I were wrapping up this shoot and I reached for one of the pretty desserts I said “ah how ironic! I’m literally in my mama dream bubble Mother’s Day scenario and here we are, wrapping it up and heading out!” We both laughed and decided that we shouldn’t let all this high tea goodness go to waste. A half hour later, I was driving home and thinking about how much I had already missed the girls. I would still make it home for bedtime. And as I was snuggling and reading to Charlie, before heading to Grace’s room to do her book time with her, I thought “every day feels like Mother’s Day, because I get to be your mom for every single one of them. And what’s a better gift than that?”