Mermaid Pictures for the Win: Loving myself in Every Stage

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At the beginning of the summer I made the mistake of showing my little girl pictures of some moms and daughters dressed as mermaids on the beach. After that she decided that she and I NEEDED to take mermaid pictures together.

mom and daughter kiss

I dreaded this idea and I put it off for as long as I possibly could, but I finally had to relent and schedule the photoshoot.

I knew that I hadn’t been doing as well as I wanted in my fitness routine this summer {you may remember my “Starting Over” post earlier this year} but I was going to have to just wear the dang mermaid tail and smile for the sake of my little girl whose dream was for us to be mermaids together!

I realized that this photoshoot was not about me or my own hang-ups about how I feel about myself and how I look.

The big picture is that I want my daughter to know that I think she is important, beautiful, strong, and most importantly that I value things that she values (which currently is mermaids and unicorns).

I recently read an article about the correlation between family photos and our children’s self-esteem, in the article David Krauss, a licensed psychologist from Cleveland, Ohio, is quoted saying, “I think it is really important to show a family as a family unit. It is so helpful for children to see themselves as a valued and important part of that family unit…”

Read the entire article here. 

Then the day came for our  Mermaid photoshoot.

I found the cutest little mermaid top for my daughter to wear and a beautiful white one-piece for myself that I thought would look nice – but still be covered. I did bright makeup for myself – which is out of my comfort zone, but, TBH, so is taking pictures in a swimsuit, so I figured I should lean into the theme as much as possible.

We headed a secluded beach in Rockport at sunset, met the photographer Kim from A Mermaid’s Tale Photography, who provided the mermaid tails and took the photos. 

She took a TON of pictures – even a few of my son playing at the edge of the water – while Keely and I were getting ready. I really thought I would be self-conscience and awkward but I had SO.MUCH.FUN! And the best part by far was seeing how happy my daughter was splashing around in her tale.

Splashing in mermaid talemermaid in the sunset

The next day when the pictures came through, I’ll admit there were some tears because I didn’t LOVE myself in all of them, but the more I looked the more I found pictures of myself that I did love! And now we have that memory forever. And when she is a grumpy teenager, I can remind her that her lame mom dressed as a mermaid with her when she was three and she LOVED it!

I am slowly trying to learn to love myself at every stage and size, and reminding myself that my kids love me because I am their mom, and they do not care about my mom-bod or what size I was when they were little. But they do need to feel like they belong and have pride in our family. So I vow to be IN THE PICTURE from here forward!

mermaids looking at the sunset