daycare is closed today and because it is nice out and we had obviously already knocked out our hour of tv and were officially “all done for the day, let’s go outside,” i decided we were going to go raspberry picking across the street.

we needed berries for the top of the birthday cake we’re making for my mother-in-law (who henry calls “monday.” it’s a long story.)

in my head, this was going to be veryyyyyy cute.

he’d want to hold my hand the whole way, obviously. he’d pick a few berries. we’d feed them to each other. i’d bring my new camera and get a cute picture of him with raspberry juice all over his hands, or maybe his face, or maybe (if i was really lucky) his hands and his face. 

who knows, maybe i’d even try to set the camera up somewhere and take a picture of us picking raspberries together.

can you tell i had the whole thing perfectly planned?

obviously, none of that happened.

he wanted me to carry him. he was thirsty. he had to poop. he didn’t have to poop anymore (thank god). he didn’t like the sticks poking his legs. he wanted to ride on my shoulders, no wait on my hip, no wait on my shoulders again. he’s tired but no, he (obviously) doesn’t want to nap.

he did not want to pick raspberries. he did not want to eat raspberries. he certainly did not want to feed me raspberries.

so instead, it was mostly me standing in a raspberry patch begging my small person to take just a few more steps while i picked berries by myself.

these are the only pictures i got (and don’t let the smiles distract or mislead you)…

these are the situations where i ask “what is the mom lesson here” and honestly, i haven’t quite figured that out yet.

maybe it’s that motherhood is a trip.

maybe it’s that managing expectations (his, but mostly mine) is important.

maybe it’s that leaning into what he actually wants and needs (rather than the little movie i’ve made in my head about how the morning is supposed to go) is one of those things that takes constant practice.

or maybe it’s just that sometimes you spend twenty minutes imagining the perfect little afternoon and then spend the actual afternoon carrying a toddler through a raspberry patch while he complains about sticks.

both things can be true.

there is so much beauty in the version i imagined. there is also something pretty funny—and definitely a little more honest—about the version that actually happened. and now that i’m thinking about it, this is exactly what i see happen in family sessions, too.

the best photos almost never come from getting everyone to do exactly what we planned.

they happen when we let kids be kids. when we stop trying to over-engineer, over-plan, over-clean, over-think and over-everything else. the best photos come when we let them run off, get dirty, climb on you, hide behind your legs, collect sticks, change their minds, and generally do all the very kid-ish things kids do.

the less we try to control it, the more room there is for something real to happen…and ten times out of ten, that’s where my favorite photographs live.

which, apparently, is something i needed to be reminded of by a toddler who refused to pick a single raspberry.

and, for what it’s worth, we did get the raspberries.

they’re on the cake.

so i suppose we’ll call it a win.

now i have to go because he doesn’t want to nap and has been rolling around in his bed for the last forty minutes.

remember when i said we already used our one hour of tv for the day?

i take that back.

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