Forget wearing your heart on your sleeve. Mom of two Maya Vorderstrasse makes her feelings (hilariously) clear on a letter board.
Vorderstrasse posts photos on Instagram of herself and sometimes her partner alongside a letter board that sums up what she’s thinking. While pregnant with her now 2-week-old, Hazel, Vorderstrasse posed with the board at different stages of her pregnancy, touching on everything from swollen feet to food cravings to her incessant need to pee.
Vorderstrasse, who also has a 1-year-old named Zoey, told HuffPost she decided to regularly post pics with the letter board to shake up the seemingly perfect photos she had seen of other women’s pregnancies.
“Honestly I was so tired of seeing motherhood portrayed as perfect, flawless, and effortless on social media, because I never felt like it was like that for me,” she said. “So I embraced my chaotic life, and decided to share it with everyone in the hopes of helping other mothers realize that it’s OK to not have it all figured out.”
Her boards sum up exactly what she’s feeling for that week, and sometimes she gets help from her “incredibly supportive” partner.
Now that she’s given birth to Hazel, she also touches on postpartum topics like breastfeeding. In a funny way, the photos have served as a bright side for Vorderstrasse when things get tough.
“I just try to translate my symptoms into words, but in my brain everything comes together in a funny way, because I’d rather laugh at my own misery than cry about it,” she said.
Vorderstrasse told HuffPost that though having two children so close together in age is a challenge, she wouldn’t change a thing.
“I’ll keep laughing my way out of diapers and screams because when I look back at my life, I’ll want to remember it as fun, light and filled with love,” she said.
The funny mom plans on keeping her letter board project going as long as she can.
“Soon I’ll have to deal with the terrible twos, and I can’t wait to see what those boards will look like!”
See more of Vorderstrasse’s letter board photos below and on her Instagram page.
