I have a toddler, she is 2.5 years old and she is literally the love of my life. I have given her my entire world, my body, my heart and my soul and what I get in return when I see her smile or tell me she loves me is so amazing there is not even a word in the English Dictionary to describe the feeling.
That being said, being a mom is not easy.
No, being a mom, especially to younger kids is taxing and draining and it sometimes leaves you feeling like the only thing that matters is your child…that you have to, in a sense, cast yourself aside in order to be viewed as a good mom… For some reason in the mommy circles, women can be viscous when they see another woman looking her best and taking care of herself or loving herself. There is this ridiculous stigma that says you are a bad mom if you have time to wash and dry your hair every day, or you don’t walk around in vomit drenched clothing from your baby or god forbid, you even go out without your kid and do something for yourself. We get sucked into this mommy slump, where we fall right into these stereotypes and man oh man are they hard to crawl out of. We try to be the best moms we can be while constantly facing judgement from other mothers and worst of all from ourselves.
So many of my clients come to me because they want to remember what it feels like to focus on themselves, to love themselves fully and to not feel an ounce of guilt for remembering that they still matter. They come to me because it is really hard sometimes to come to terms with what having a baby can do to your body and they want to know and feel in their skin that they are still the same sexy woman.
Well I am here to tell you that mama’s still got it!
Now, lets switch our focus for a second to Jennifer. Jennifer came to me only months after having her 2nd child. She was very honest with me about how she was feeling about herself, about how she was stuck in that infamous “mommy slump” and how she was hoping and praying that her boudoir experience would lift her out of it. (I am not going to lie, that is a big responsibility to have, and one I take very, very seriously. Every time a client comes to me and pours their heart out, I take it in and I make it my lifes work to help them find that spark of sexuality and self acceptance again.) When Jenn arrived she was super nervous, just as I expect all of my clients to be, but as soon as she sat down in that hair and makeup chair and could feel she was being given permission to simply enjoy her experience, she left it all at the door and fully committed to her session.
I think her images alone can speak to the transition we were able to witness during her shoot and to quote Jennifer “This experience has helped me find the love for myself that I have been missing. it has opened my eyes to see that I am beautiful in my own way. I would do this again and again for myself.” Well, check out her first session, because after receiving her album she reached out to me and we have already starting planning quite an epic next session for her!
Thank you to Cassandra McKenna for pampering my beautiful client and providing her super sexy hair and makeup!
