Presence, Chaos, and the Silly Face That Changed Everything

The week before Thanksgiving, our house briefly became a full-blown disaster zone.

Our fourteen-month-old had already powered through six ear infections in his first year of life. In an effort to avoid nuking his entire microbiome with antibiotics, we decided to move forward with ear tube surgery. As surgeries go, it’s minor. But it’s still surgery. And that carries its own quiet weight.

The night before, we noticed a red patch around his mouth. Not a rash. Not hives. Just… redness. We decided to keep an eye on it.

The next morning, we walked into his room and realized he’d thrown up in his sleep. He seemed okay. We told the anesthesiologist. They decided to proceed.

The surgery itself went fine. But afterward, he kept throwing up. The redness spread across his face. And then, because apparently the universe wanted to be thorough, we found a tick behind his ear the size of a piece of candy corn.

For the next day and a half, we lived in diagnostic limbo. Stomach bug? Reaction to anesthesia? Allergy? Lyme disease?

The answer arrived while I was standing in line at CVS waiting for prophylactic doxycycline. I realized I was about to have a medical emergency of my own.

Norovirus.

I somehow made it home without vomiting on the pharmacist. Once there, the rest of the house joined in solidarity.

When survival becomes the goal

Norovirus is best described as eating nothing but Taco Bell for a week, then being locked in a bathroom on a whale watch that gets caught in a hurricane.

It’s awful alone. It’s exponentially worse with kids.

Kids, inexplicably, handle it better than adults. Our one- and four-year-old were still agile and energetic. The only difference was that they were now launching biohazardous projectiles at random.

Every incident became a crime scene. We’d tape it off mentally and leave everything exactly where it landed, because the thought of cleaning it up threatened to trigger another incident from us.

Everything hurt. My hips, head, back, legs, and ego all felt like they’d been beaten with a five iron. We moved through the house like ninety-six-year-olds who had spent most of their lives working in a coal mine.

The moment I stopped trying to manage it

The four-year-old was easy enough. She watched more Daniel Tiger in one day than she had in her entire life.

Gus, however, has no interest in screens. His primary hobby is endangerment.

So I locked myself in the most baby-proofed room in the house with him and prepared to ride it out.

Every time he climbed on me, tugged at me, or whimpered, I found myself bargaining with a toddler.

“Gus. Sir. Please. No. Please play with a toy. Here is a book. Do you see the cat? Please, God.”

All I wanted was to disappear into my phone and wait for the day to end.

And then something unexpected happened.

Without thinking, our eyes met, and I made a silly face.

He laughed. Then made a face back at me.

And then I laughed.

The cosmic joke

For thirty seconds, the entire day lifted.

I’d spent the entire day trying to manage the situation. Entertain him. Fix things. Control the uncontrollable.

And the universe finally tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You really think you’re in charge here?”

The silly face wasn’t a strategy. It wasn’t a parenting technique. It was an accident. A moment of grace.

For those thirty seconds, I wasn’t trying to fix anything. I wasn’t wishing it were different. I was just there.

Why this matters in family photography

I see this same moment play out during family sessions all the time.

A child melts down. A parent tenses. The fear shows up. The fear of wasting the session. Of being judged. Of messing it up.

And then, sometimes, they pause. Breathe. Soften. And choose connection instead.

That’s when the real photos happen.

Not because anyone performed better. But because they stopped resisting what was actually happening.

Presence is always available, even when everything feels impossible. Sometimes it just arrives through a silly face you didn’t plan on making.