One of the reasons why I first picked up a camera was to document my daughter when she was born. I wanted to capture every precious moment and document her childhood. Motherhood has been a different experience for me than I thought it would be. I thought I’d be the type of mother who loved playing with her kids and was perfectly content to be home with her children. I mostly stay home with them, but I’ve found that doing something for me (like photography) is really really essential to me being a better mom. Sometimes when I’m having a rough day, I pull out my camera and use it to help me re-focus on what I love in my children.

When I use my camera to capture them, it forces me to look for the magic in my children. I focus on the tiny details that I know won’t last. Like that ity bity muddy footprint. Someday too soon it will be a big man sized print and I’ll wonder where my baby went. I play games with them to get them to jump and play and move into the prettiest light in the backyard. Looking at these photos makes me marvel at how beautiful, funny, fun, happy, amazing and magical my children are. I am so grateful to photography for forcing me to slow down and capture the details of my children and to help me find my joy in them again when I get too sucked down into the difficulty daily tasks of raising little children.

What do you do to find your joy again when you’ve had a more challenging mothering day? How to you take care of yourself and how do you shift your focus to the positive rather than the sometimes repetitive, never ending tasks of motherhood?