Compartment 14B

That's nice! 2007-06-16 - 3:09 p.m. Yes, I know it�s been awhile. My internet has, horrors, been down. Grommet is definitely a toddler now and will do hot laps around the couch, only occasionally going down to her knees with an �Ow!� Her vocabulary is expanding to the degree that it�s hard to resist tinkering with it a bit. Hilariously, she now says, �Nice.� when something good happens. The other morning I was getting changed for work, and when she saw my chest exposed she started stuttering a hopeful, �Buh! Buh!� �You want some boob? Well, I guess there is kind of an implied promise here, isn�t there? Okay, but we�ve gotta make it quick.� I lifted her onto the bed where I cuddle and nurse her every morning (I don�t normally nurse though, after we�re up for the day), and was greeted with an enthusiastic, �Nice!� So cute. So funny. We�ll have to teach her �Thank you.� instead of just �Nice.� one of these days though. ::: So I was reading Rob�s blog today and I found myself struck by what he said. Lately I�ve been thinking, in a way, in the total opposite direction. While Rob still sees his baby daughter in her young-girl face, I find that I cannot conjure up what Grommet looked like as a newborn, or a year, six months, or even a month ago. I see her so often that to me she looks like Grommet and, even though I know she changes, I can only see present-tense Grommet when I close my eyes. Maybe that�s why I take so many pictures. I can conjure up images that have already been frozen in time by my camera, but I can�t picture her outside those moments. I can remember how she felt in my arms when she was a tiny bundle, her legs still bent, plucked-chicken-like, from being curled up in the womb. I can remember the emotions I experienced at certain moments � the despair of having sore boobs while knowing I�d have to offer them to her again at any moment so that she could eat; the moments of grace like the one where she�d first started to sit supported and she watched me with solemn, wide eyes as I propped her up and sang Lean on me to her. But I can�t actually picture her smiling in moments when I know she did smile and her baby face has been replaced by her toddler face in my mind�s eye. I know she was beautiful though, from the moment she was born. And I've got the pictures to prove it. Before - After All content � Shawna 2003-2010 That means no swiping my stuff - text, images, etc. - without asking. P.S. If you're emailing me, replace the [at] with @ in the "to" line. Oh, and if you put the word "journal" in the subject line it'll have a better chance of making it past my junk mail filters. recommend me HTML and design help by Jo hosted by Diaryland