I was preparing a lesson for church and it was focused on the importance of being kind to yourself and seeing yourself the way God sees you.  Instead of mentally comparing our talents, marriages, families, bodies etc to our friends, family or media figures, we need to see ourselves the way we see our own children.  We see their beauty, talents, strengths, weakness and potential.  We look at the people we love with such different eyes than we look at ourselves.  

This got me curious at just how my children saw me as a Mom.  And a little scared.  Children don't see their parents in quite the forgiving light that we see them.  So, I dared to ask them to take my camera and pose me in the way that they thought of me.  

I prepped them by saying things like, "When I think about my Mom, I imagine her baking bread/orange rolls etc.  I think of her doing her family history.  I see her pulling people together and helping them shine with whatever talents they have."  

While this is all true, I was secretly hoping that it would inspire the kids to be nice to me.  Yeah...it didn't work.  (I also had them pick out my outfit, which happened to be pajamas.)  I asked them if I should comb my hair and they declined.  I told them I could put on make-up (maybe I begged a little) but they also decided against makeup.  Mean little children.

This is what they came up with.

Ethan went first.  He wanted me to be turning off the TV and telling them to do chores.

Just as I feared.  Not the best look for me.

Austin wanted me to be on my bed reading a book.

This made me laugh since I can't remember the last time I even picked up a book to read it.  I do often dream of down-time where I could do just that, however.

Alaina put me in the kitchen, cleaning up and cooking. (to get my action shots, I just continued what I was doing before this experiment... making my salsa and cleaning up.)  Laina knows me well.  These are her pictures:

Jason.  My sweetest child.  :)  When I asked how he saw his mama, he said, "Loving me."  He didn't hold the camera but directed Alaina to hold it while he and I were 'being loving.'

When I finally asked Emmett what he imagined me doing, he had his answer ready.  "Wiping my bottom."  Silly boy.  I tried to explain the game in lots of different ways, hoping he'd change his mind, but if you know Emmett even a little bit, you'll know how stubborn the child is.  So I gave up and we took this picture. 

After pushing him a bit more, he also added, "I see you cooking with me.  I'm your little chef."  That was more like it, so we took a couple of those pictures too.

Emmett took this picture himself.  It's a good reminder just how little people see the world.

So.  I have to admit, during this experiment, and even more so later while I was going through the pictures, I felt a little down.  My kids don't see me as a put-together woman.  They don't see me as an talented individual or intelligent thinker.  They see me as a crazy-haired, sometimes grumpy, maid, comforter, cook and bottom wiper.  Kinda like a German nanny.  

I sighed as I looked at myself, seen through my children's eyes.  I couldn't help but thinking of Instagram for a minute.  Picture perfect moments of my friends and even myself as we carefully pose the frame to include only what we want others to see.  Then I looked again at these pictures.  It's true that they aren't very glamorous, but when I thought about it, they were pretty spot on to our reality.  

These are the things I do everyday for my kids.  I sacrifice the shower.  I discipline, cook and clean.  I dream of relaxing and reading books but I really do spend a lot of time reading books to my children.  So, a book in my hand isn't as rare as I first thought (just insert a teen novel or children's book)  And I really do spend a good portion of my time tending to the basics needs of my kids' personal hygiene.  (Just how many hours have I spent wiping my childrens' bums, I'll never know.)  

I also spend all my time loving those 5 kids of mine.  If we aren't physically hugging, I'm worrying or fretting over them.  I'm taking them to practice and getting them ready for school.  I'm signing papers and organizing schedules.   I do look a little crazy for the majority of the time and I do admit to spending more time in my pajamas than is probably healthy.  However, there is a lot of love behind each of these pictures.  I'm sure as my children grow, their vision of me will also grow and change.  (If I think back to what I thought of my Mom as a kid, I still saw her baking, but I also imagine her on the extra-long corded phone, chatting away and getting mad at us when the house was a disaster.)  

For now, I'm just fine being seen as the one who spends her time providing nourishment for my kids' bellies, stories for their imaginations, cleanliness for their bodies and home and love for their hearts.  Being a Mom doesn't need to be pretty to be a beautiful thing.