This girl chose her own outfit and shoot location this year for her seven year old photos. Grace has been my practice baby in every single way possible. Over the years she has learned to smile on demand, lower her chin, wiggle her head, run with her arms out- all in the pursuit of photo perfection.
She’s becoming this girl who speaks like a woman. I can barely see the baby that she once was, except in this really fascinating way. If she drinks from a cup that covers her nose but exposed her chin ( like a sippy cup), I can see her baby face.
Those giant brown eyes and dimpled chin that used to stare back at me when I was breast feeding her so very long ago, are suddenly starring at me once again. I remember Matt’s secretary once telling me that over the years I would see flashes of my babies in my adult kids faces. She told me that those flashes would come when I needed them and that they would live in my heart for always. I have come to think of those flashes as the secret that every mother knows. You can’t really know what I mean until it happens to you, but when it does it is like visiting an old friend who you love with your entire heart but know you can’t see every day.
Oh, but when you do. When you do it’s the greatest instant in the history of your heart. Hello baby Gracen, how I miss you deeply. Just writing this I could cry.
Seems ridiculous that I should have to say goodbye to my baby on the eve of their first birthday but that is the power of that first birthday. Every single time, I would sit with them in their rocking chair and say goodbye to the baby that they were. And yes a million more wonderful memories await us….
But sometimes I miss that little baby. Though this big girl is pretty incredible too.
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