This is a nice photo.
Everything on Instagram is nice. Sometimes I almost think I could be a photographer, or at least someone with a lovely lifestyle blog full of beautiful soft-focus shots of their immaculate home full of spotless white furniture and inspirational quotes.
However, as we all know, life doesn’t come packaged up neatly in an Instagram-ready box, with all imperfections filtered out. So here’s the real story behind this photo.*
1.) It was taken in the pub. Yes, I took my toddler to the pub! Unhand me now O officers of social services, for I had but one one glass of wine. And it took hours to drink that, due to intermittently abandoning said wine to chase a toddler around.
2.) Yes, Piglet ran around in the pub. I am the mother whose toddler runs riot in a drinking establishment. Gone are the days when we used to sit in the corner of the local after work on a Friday afternoon and swear that we would never be those raucous parents at the bar, allowing their children free rein over the dry roasted peanuts and the “lounge bar” whilst they cackle over their Bacardi and Coke.
3.) As he has spent so much time running around a pub, Piglet has been exposed to a lot of swearing and bad language (NOT FROM ME OR MY COMPANIONS OR RELATIVES, I mean from others in the pub, just casually dropping an F-bomb here or there, in the context of their pub bantz, innit). I am now convinced that his second word (he can already say “ball”-well done) will be something I don’t approve of, like “Noel Edmonds” (see below).
3.) In a bid to stop him running around (and to give me a welcome break from chasing him), I introduced Piglet to the fruit machines. Not to play with actual money, obvs, but it can’t be far off, as he is now OBSESSED. There is a future as a gambling addict awaiting him, and it is all my fault.
4.) This photo was taken when I tired of chasing Piglet around and holding him aloft to look at Noel Edmonds’ face amongst the flashing lights of Deal or No Deal, and handed him to my brother.
5.) Last but not least, it isn’t Christmas any more, so instead of a little boy looking eagerly at a snowman, with shades of the Snowman movie, and a youthful Aled Jones singing in the background, it’s a boy taking a breather from running around a pub on a Sunday lunchtime pointing at the fruit machines and absorbing age-inappropriate vocabulary whilst surrounded by the last vestiges of a Christmas that is no more. Sad times. Until next year.
*OK, so I’m not that Australian girl who had like, 500,000 followers and got loads of free clothes and then revealed the real life behind the Instagram shots in a not very surprising expose. My real life behind the Instagram doesn’t involve free clothes, loads of likes OR posing 50,000 times until you get that one great shot. Have you ever met a toddler? That camera would be going straight into their little hands, and into the Lair of Lost Toys under the sofa, or lobbed across the kitchen until it smashes into a thousand tiny pieces.
Life Love and Dirty Dishes
Haha love it, beautiful photo too
Happy New Year
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So so sooooooooooooo true! And actually my life…except i gave uo trying the pub a long time ago!! 😉
Thanks for linking up to #ToddlerApprovedTuesday, cant wait to see what you have next week.
Thank you for commenting! I look forward to popping back.
Lol I think a lot of instagram photos are like that. I have been known too clear just one area and make it look tidy to take a photo 😉
I literally can’t believe how “nice” some of my pics on there look, when I really cannot take photos, and usually end up taking the back of someone’s head.
Good old Instagram! Some peoples accounts full of amazing pictures seriously amaze me, how!? I personally prefer the real accounts with the kids with their fingers shoved up their noses haha. Thanks for linking up to Marvellous Mondays. Kaye xo
The pretty pictures of children and landscapes I can manage-it’s the impeccable homes I don’t understand. There’s no filter strong enough to block out the mess in my gaff.
Love the honesty behind this photo. It made me smile even more than the photo did. The photo adds a visual to the little man running around and playing on the fruit machine. Happy New Year.
#KCACOLS
Yes, I think I’ve inadvertently given him a taste for the ‘ol gambling there. Never mind! Thanks for commenting.
Awww what a lovely picture, I would never have guessed it was taken in a pub. Oh boy the f bomb huh.But to be fair in this day and age, he would have picked it it anywhere and not just in the pub! Thanks so much for linking up at #KCACOLS. Hope you come back again next Sunday.xx #KCACOLS
That’s true, and since he’s not a very accomplished speaker just yet, it probably went over his head to be fair. Another year and then I’ll really have to worry.
Thank goodness for photo editing 😉
Thanks for linking up to #FridayFrolics
I can barely remember what life was like before it! Thanks for commenting and hosting!
I love this post, and love your explanation even more. Slightly jealous though, i’m scared to take my tribe to the pub in case i get barred 😉 , kathryn xx
#fartglitter
I thought I would be chased out with torches, but apparently most pubs are child friendly now. We even got a few indulgent looks from the landlady, and a free breadstick. Times have changed since I were a wee lass and children were banished to the beer garden!
Those fruit machines are full of exciting lights to tempt the little tots!! Sounds like your Sunday lunchtimes are full of fun. I love your close up pic of Piglet. Thanks for linking up #FabFridayPost
Thanks. Yes, Sunday lunchtime is good. We usually go out, albeit to the same place, so they are used to us!
Haha- you’re reality sounds a lot more like mine than the realities represented on Instagram.
#fartglitter
Even my instagram feed is a bit “over-filtered” sometimes!
Instagram is such a weird world where they have said it is a place to find beautiful inspirations of many subjects. Because we want to inspired and be inspired we tend to post beautiful photos – for that it has hidden the truthfulness of the said photo. I love your gorgeous photo of your baby in the pub as it has a story behind it – and I love your honesty of it. I have to say I am also starting to hesitate in posting messy photos on my IG too – but all pictures have their own stories and that’s what really count I supposed. Thank you for linking up with us again. xx #FabFridayPost
To be fair it is quite difficult to post a bad photo to Instagram with all the filters they have. Just makes everything look so much better! If only the real world was like Instagram.
haha this is so funny!! I know exactly what you mean!! It is amazing how can a beautiful photo can be so far from the truth. This is now making me wonder all the behind of cameras of the nicest photos in instagram, lol I guess each photo has a story behind. Interesting post!! Thanks so much for sharing this at #KCACOLS. 🙂 x
It does make you wonder, doesn’t it? Whoever said the camera never lies was the biggest liar there is!
Love this! I’m forever cropping, filtering and highlighting in the hope of making me / my home / my life look neater and sparklier, lol. I drag Marianna to lots of evening meetings (like labour branch meetings and community council informal group meetings) and I take a photo of her looking so lovely and well behaved, and then she spends the whole time crawling around everyone’s feet and yelling / making quack noises when people are speaking. On the plus side it does remind people that these meetings are incredibly boring and should end sooner rather than later 😉 #thebabyformula
I love it that you take Marianna to meetings! I wish I could take Piglet to work, but no one would get anything done, least of all me!
It’s really refreshing to see a post like this – sometimes I’m scrolling through instagram and wonder who has the sort of time to pose every single one of their pictures and ensure they’ve got the best light? I certainly don’t. All of my pictures are pretty raw and slightly filtered but that’s as far as it goes. #TheBabyFormula
Yep, those filters hide a multitude of sins!
Beautiful photo but even better story! Thanks for sharing the real deal! I feel better now that most of my instagram posts are precipitated by 17 failed attempts to get an non-blurry shot! Visiting from #theBabyFormula
Haha, same for everyone I think!
Love this. For every perfect photo I have ever posted on Instagram, there is at least another fifty in my deleted folder of my kids screaming, crying, blinking, escaping….! These days I post more of those “out-takes” and actually, those are the photos that really sum up my children, not the beautiful ones of them smiling sweetly!! #TheBabyFormula
I completely agree! Most of mine are a bit blurry. Not sure if that’s Piglet running away, or my terrible photography.
Hahaha great post, and fab photo! I think it’s so interesting knowing the full ‘picture’ behind the ‘picture’ and also reading some of the comments above, so many people are like me, clearing a corner for a photo 🙂
Thanks for sharing and hope you can link up next week too #TheBabyFormula
Clearing a corner sounds like exactly what I do…then filter out as much as possible! Thanks for commenting.
One Christmas (prior to me being on Instagram, Twitter or even Facebook) I took my 2 beautiful girls out into my backyard dressed in their prettiest dresses and posed on a blanket with flowers everywhere. Aspen was 3 and April 8 months. I wanted the perfect pic for my Christmas cards. Both girls were totally grumpy, I was getting grumpy, it was getting hot. I gave up took them inside and gave them some cool yoghurt. We ended up having a lovely time after I gave up trying to get the perfect pic. I sent a photo of them just being them in the end and was really happy I did. I do post nice pics on Instagram, but on my private Facebook I am very real. Instagram for me is a plea for me to feel inspired and do share things to promote my blog and part of ‘my real life’ is taking pretty pictures and styling anyway so I guess in away it is just as real as the not so perfect shots, as there are so many sides to my life and myself. I love your photo!!!!!!! And yes my kids have been to the pub with me too and run around. Great post!
Thanks-yes, we do use different social media for different things, don’t we, and my Instagram is nothing if not filtered to the hilt, even though I do tend to mainly snap pics of Piglet eating (that tends to be when I have my hands free to take photos!) Thank you for commenting. x