Where are the pictures of you Mommy?

I take videos and pictures of my kids so we can all remember what they looked like when they were younger. But there are not many pictures of me between my son's birth in 2005 and my daughters in 2007. And there are even fewer pictures of me from 2008-2014.

Why? Because I looked fat or there were too many chins in a picture, or the bags under my eyes were too dark, or my arms were flabby. Why would I want digital proof of the chins, the arms, the bags?

When I turned 40 last year I decided to have a good talk with myself and make myself stop this destructive behavior. I put myself back in the pictures. I tried not to care about additional chins, bags, or soft stomach.

Where had the handful of years gone? How was I to explain to my 7 year-old daughter that Mama doesn't like what her stomach looks like in pictures? How do I help her create the most positive self-image of herself to carry her through the torturous years of puberty when her Mama was still traumatized by bullying in 7th grade?

I said, "stop sucking in your stomach."
I said, "don't worry at what angle the selfie is taken with you and the kid"

I read an article that said little girls do not love their bodies unless their Mamas love their own bodies as well.

What?!!? OMIG-D now I have to LOVE MY BODY so she will love hers?? And that is when it hit me. I have to love me so she will love herself.

That night she walked into bathroom while I was taking a shower. (Because G-d forbid a parent ever gets to take a shower in privacy.) She sits on the toilet and starts tell me about her day. As I listen in the shower she says,

"You are the most beautiful person in the world to me." 

I stood behind the curtain and started to weep. If this is how she sees me then why don't I see myself that way? Well now I do and here we are capturing the memories together.