I shared a picture of Evie sleeping the other day on my personal Facebook page. It’s this sweet photo of a child in dim lighting, drifting off to dreamland. I posted it with the caption “nothing better than a sleeping baby pic
“. People clicked on the like and love buttons and left little GIFs with hearts and animated LOVE texts. It was a sweet moment captured and shared for all to see.
However, this picture I posted is the issue with social media. Not because sleeping babies might cause you to have baby fever and want to pop out 15 kids. No, it’s because this picture was the highlight reel of my night, not the real reel. That moment and the text I included was the high moment of a night that had lower points. Points of frustration, irritation, and silently whispered curse words. But you didn’t see that here. You just saw the highlight.
Most people post the high moments of their life on social. The perfect family photo, kids looking all cute, siblings getting along, awesome vacation photos, fun night outs with close friends, or their house looking like something from HGTV. These moments are the highlight reel of their lives. The peaks, no valleys. Then, we see these moments and compare our whole lives to the highlight reels we are seeing:
- Why doesn’t my house look like that?
- Why do my kids always fight and never seem to enjoy each other’s company like that?
- Why hasn’t my husband bought me flowers?
- Why doesn’t my kid sleep like a normal human being like that?
Point is, those highlight moments are dangerous. They steal your joy because you compare your life to those little snippets people share online. And I contributed to that in my own way with the sleeping photo of Evie and the text that simply said, “nothing better than a sleeping baby pic.” Because the real reel of this moment is much more.
The Real Reel
Might you ask yourself, how did I get that photo of my two year old sleeping? Did I sneak into her room to capture it? Hell no! What kind of insane person would sneak into their toddler’s room and risk waking them up just to take a picture?! Like the mom in the book “Love You Forever” who picks up her toddler when he was asleep and rocks/sings to him. Are you f’in crazy?! Don’t ever touch or come near a sleeping toddler if you don’t have to.
No. I was able to capture this photo because I was in her room for over an hour before this photo was taken. I spent those many minutes trying to get her to sleep through book reading, nursing, and then hovering over her bed with my hand on her body until she fell asleep. I stood over her bed this night, as I do many others, with my hand resting on bum, back, or belly because she likes to feel my presence as she falls asleep. When attempting to leave and remove my hand from her body, I always feel like Indiana Jones trying to replace the idol with a bag of sand to not trigger the trap. I slowly remove one finger at a time from her back, letting it hover for a minute above her body before moving to the next one. Each finger removed is a small victory and one step closer to me being able to leave her room and go about the 50 other things I need to do before my day is done.
Her desire to have me near is sweet. I know that. I know I will look back at these moments years from now and remember her tiny face staring up at me before she falls asleep. I will remember her little voice saying “back” when she requests I put my hand there. Those hours I spent in her room will become little grains of sand in the bottom of my hourglass of life. But, in these days where I am living those hours, it still is a struggle. That’s my real reel.
The sweetness of seeing that sleeping angelic face and the struggle it took to get there.
