See It All
“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”
When we find out that a daughter will be born we can begin to imagine.
The days walking hand in hand down with warm sunshine on your smiling faces as you sing songs, look for birds and pick up leaves. The brightest days.
Imagining the warm snuggles after bathtime, reading stories with soft voices, pajama-comfort and uncontrollable yawns leading up to being tucked in with gentle good night kisses and whispers of "I love you to the moon and back."
The softest, most gentle touch of a little hand, tiny barettes, and being needed.
And then these things become your reality.
Along with those nights where you would give your right leg to have 2 hours of straight sleep. Evenings filled with "witching hour" after "witching hour". Constant "NO"s, morsels of food wedged in places you couldn't imagine, coffee after coffee to just make it through another story time at the library or play date when you would rather be sleeping.
Tired shoulders, back, head, mouth, arms, neck and pretty much every body part, par for the course. An hour alone will be your biggest luxury.
Heaviness, like an anchor clinging to your body. You learn to adapt to the weight, in more ways than one.
I see it all.
I feel it all.
On the darkest days you learn to create a fire and see the light. On the brightest days we absorb the richest memories. The way the light shines on the tiniest joy.
We practice to be with emotions and feelings we never thought we could be with.
Love runs deep so we know the heaviness comes alongside ecstatic.
I met little Mia for the first time on the day of the photo shoot and I was so excited as the last time I photographed this beautiful family she was in her mama's belly. I saw the way she only wanted her mom, to be held by her only for over an hour and it flooded me with memories of when my own daughters were this small and demanding.
Time passes and as hard as any one moment is you always miss the chubby thighs.