I’ve been thinking a lot about why I write my blog, The Ugly Underbelly. Is it to exploit my own children, posting cute photos of the day’s comings and goings? No. It’s bigger than that. This past Mother’s Day, I decided to clarify my mission - to myself and to anyone out there who bothers to read my posts.

As we all trek through the trenches of parenthood, I believe it’s important- no, essential - to #findthefunny in all that we do. It’s not all pretty. On the contrary, more often than not the day-to-day is pretty ugly. But it’s essential to step back every now and then and see the humor amidst the hellfire and have a good laugh at the ludicrous nature of parenthood.

You can find it in everything. Sometimes it’s buried under a day’s worth tears or lingering on the heels of a yelling match you had with your teenagers. It’s hiding in the handful of candy you’ve been sneaking when your kids aren’t looking. It lives in both the rock-bottom and the brightest moments and rarely makes itself abundantly apparent. But if we can all make it our mission to #findthefunny in at least one moment per day, we’ll all be in a better position to dig ourselves out of the muck and mire of parenting’s #UglyUnderbelly.

There, I said it. Now, please for goodness sake, laugh with me at how great our annual amateur Mother’s Day photo session went this year!