Mother's Day 2026

Happy Monday!

As yesterday was Mother's Day here in the UK, I thought it would be nice to write a post about my own experience of motherhood in relation to my job. I think Mother's Day is a great day to spend celebrating motherhood in all its forms: mums, people who want to be mums, step mums, mums who are no longer here with us, mums to angel babies, fur baby mums, and especially the single mums doing all the work (and I hope the single dads get some recognition too).

I had a lovely day with Pixie yesterday, just the two of us. I don't know how much I've actually spoken in my blog posts about the fact that I am a single parent, but people who know me well will know that I've been winging it alone pretty much since the start. So to me, Mother's Day feels pretty important because it's a reminder to celebrate how much I do day to day for my little one. I wouldn't change a thing though.

In this post, I am going to share some images from shoots with Dave Edkins to highlight what it's like taking your daughter to work with you when your job is being a model. Some of these images come from shoots where I had to bring Pixie along with me because my childcare fell through, and some are from shoots that were intended to include Pixie (we do a specific shot every year that I will share with you at the end of this post).

Dave has known Pixie since she was born and was actually one of the first people to know when I was pregnant. He is affectionately referred to as 'Aunty Dave' by Pixie... I did try to correct her initially but now it's just stuck so he will probably be known as Aunty Dave forever now. But anyway, the point is, Pixie adores him which means we get some really good shots when she's with us in the studio and she definitely loves being included whether it was part of the original plan or not.

Another note before I share some images with you: I have blurred out Pixie's face on these as it's a public post. There's nothing wrong with your vision, I'm just keeping her face out of the public domain as much as possible. Plus, this is my blog, I can't have her stealing the limelight with her cuteness!

September 2022

Pixie had been to the studio with me a couple of times before, but this was the first shoot that me and Dave did towards the concept I mentioned, that I will share with you at the end of this post. Here is my favourite outtake from that set with Pixie splatted on the floor, and a lovely shot of us sat together:

December 2022

As I had Pixie with me when we were doing a Christmas themed shoot, we decided to give our concept another go. Here are some more outtakes from that (and a lovely shot of the two of us together in the middle). I like these outtakes because it shows those little moments that happen between the lovely final images that you come away with.

Here are two images of me trying to look graceful and pretty, but getting photobombed by a tiny human. One thing I love about all of the images in this post, is how happy I look when I'm around Pixie because I mostly feel like our time together is spent with me saying things like, 'put that back', 'take that out of your mouth', 'we aren't supposed to lick that' etc etc so it's nice to have a record of the happy moments to remind me how much joy she brings me.

May 2023

In May 2023, we took Pixie on a location shoot with us. It was pretty hilarious for the most part as she was confidently walking at this point, but she was still quite unstable. Location shoots come with their own challenges even when you're not taking your daughter to work with you, but all of those challenges are exacerbated when you're trying to be Mama and a model at the same time. There were some lovely opportunities for some mother-daughter shots too, but Pixie mostly wasn't interested and was more excited to be running around causing trouble.

This first image was captured when we were trying to get Pixie to stand close to me to get a nice shot of the two of us in matching outfits, but she just kept running off towards the camera. The next shot was taken when we were having a sit down on a bench. It was an outtake really and one of those lucky shots, but I absolutely love it and still maintain that it would make an amazing album cover!

February 2024

When me and Dave came to do the second instalment of our studio shoot with Pixie just over a year, we were using The Kiln studio and they had all of their Valentine's Day things set up. It worked out really well because the props available created some wonderful family photos (I use images from this shoot as the background screen on my laptop). It was a really fun and silly shoot and probably the most successful in terms of useable images of me and Pixie.

January 2025

The following year was 2025, when I returned to modelling properly. This shoot was so much fun, and it was hilarious trying to shoot some serious solo stuff alongside the family photos we were trying to get. I just remember her being really hyperactive and manic so getting us both in one place for more than 10 seconds was pretty much impossible so we had to try to trick her into staying near to me, or I just had to grab her and try to hold her next to me.

When we started trying to shoot some stuff without her, of course she wanted to be in front of the camera immediately. I got photobombed a lot on this set, then she started to copy the poses afterwards which was completely adorable. I think Dave managed to photoshop her out of enough of them to get a decent amount of useable images, but the entire shoot was just lots of fun (if a little stressful at times).

December 2025

Last December, I got let down for childcare just before we did our Christmas themed group shoot. Luckily, the group we had in the studio that day were all regulars and all agreed that it was fine for her to come along. In all honesty, I think they were just excited to meet her as I talk about her an awful lot anyway. It went so much better than I had anticipated and everyone loved having her there.

Pixie is a very confident and social child, so she essentially provided entertainment for the photographers when they weren't shooting! We also incorporated her into one of the sets, which worked nicely. One of the photographers asked me at the end if I could bring her along next time which made me smile, but no... modelling is supposed to be my break from being Mama for a few hours.

January 2026

At our latest shoot with Pixie in the studio this January, nothing had changed from previous years: I spent most of my time waiting around for her to decide to come stand next to me so we could get some nice photos until we tried to start shooting other things and then I couldn't get her away from me. It always lovely having her with me at work because even though it's double the effort for me, I come away with some lovely images and lovely memories. Especially when we are doing a set in Star Wars t-shirts!

Flying Baby 2022-2026

Here are the images from the annual shoot we do that we refer to as 'the flying baby shot'. These images show the progression from nine months, until just after she turned four at the start of this year:

September 2022

December 2022

February 2024

January 2025

January 2026

And of course, you know I like to end blog posts on outtakes, so here are some outtakes of me struggling to lift my four year old! I don't think I'll be able to do this shot at all by next year but we are probably still going to try (or I'll have to start lifting weights or something!)

Thank you for coming with me on this journey and allowing me the space to ramble on about my life! I really do have the best daughter and I feel so privileged that I get to be her Mama. There's a new subscriber post coming on Sunday for those who have a membership, and another Misuzu Monday blog next week.

Until then, Misuzu x