A short picture trip down Memory Lane

My computer is being ultra stupid right now and has prohibited proper use of the "Enter" key. Therefore, prepare to be blasted with pictures. I've spent the last month looking at all of her pictures since her birthday is Sunday (!!!!).                                                                                            

These two ARE my heart.

I don't even have words... so. much. perfection.

Can you handle the happy clapping face? Neither can I. Who taught her to be so cute?!

I miss my hair every time I look at this picture.

I want to kiss that sweet belly.

Throwback! This was my birthday a couple months after we started dating.

I want to kiss that mouth.

The first rays of sunshine after we got home from the hospital. AKA her first home jaundice treatment.

So small, soft, and fragile.

Gnawing on that frozen celery sure helps sooth the pain of teething!

Obviously there was something shocking in the book. I've made that face a few times myself.

I want to kiss that neck and chin. And mouth. And nose.

Milk drunk and hungover from shots (pun intended)

My favorite sleeping weirdo.

This picture has never actually been shared online. I love that it captures us though. For all his knuckledheadedness, he was such a strength to me. Labor hurts. 

Sharing a laugh with her friend in the book.

Stretch marks are beautiful?

You know what I'm tired of seeing?

Touchy feely write-ups/memes/videos/you name its about how "beautiful" stretch marks are. The kind one develops while carrying a child within their womb.

I don't care how you spin it, THOSE THINGS ARE NOT PRETTY. No amount of, "every mark I have reminds me of the time I carried you" sappiness will every change that. You know what else carrying a baby did to my body? Let's not go there. Let's just say that those things aren't pretty either. Neither can they be glamorized as reminders of pregancy. Ain't nothing glamorous about them.

I am all too aware that I carried a child within my womb. It wakes me up every morning by slamming a remote control on my face. It cries when I leave a room, and pitifully races after me on its hands and knees....sometimes just one knee. It looks like the spitting image of my husband. It will call me "Momma" whenever it learns how to talk. It has my heart so fully within her grasp, that I can't even fathom a time when she wasn't with me, and my heart wants to explode when I think about trying to measure my love for her.

Let's look at stretch marks for what they are: battle scars. Yeah, sure, scars are cool and all that, but that's exactly what they are. Fleshy, wonky, and ugly leftovers from war. And it isn't like each time one (or a million) cropped up we go, "Awww...I will treasure YOU forever, little purple lightning bolt". Thoughts tend to be less tender than that.

Is there such thing as a genuinely pretty scar? I contend that there is not.

Are all scars cool? HECK YES.

Do I proudly display the ones I have in exposable places, simply because they are cool? You bet I do.

This may all sound like bitter ranting, and I'm sure you're all thinking, "Poor Emily, bless her little heart. She must feel so self-conscious and unhappy with her stretch marks". Or worse, "Ugh, Emily is so ungrateful. I can't believe she'd complain about something like stretch marks. That's part of having a baby!". PRECISELY. It's just part of having a baby for a huge percentage of women. I understand the motive behind the "stretch marks are beautiful reminders" movement. Women tend to be self-conscious about their bodies, and some have a harder time coping with the atrocities child-bearing can leave behind (believe you me, I KNOW how that goes).

I agree that it is important that women learn to love and accept their bodies, new designs and all. But I will be hanged if I am told one more time that I need to appreciate these stupid stretch marks. "But honey, stretch marks are simply beautiful reminders of the life you brought into this world". Ohmuhgosh. Stop. Would I trade them for my beautiful baby? Never in a million years. Trillion years. Never. I would take stretch marks on my face if it meant getting that gorgeous daughter of mine. But do I have to appreciate them? The same way I appreciate my body's new ability to not hold its pee until I get to a bathroom, despite my direct orders to do so? The same way I appreciate some other cosmetic changes that we won't get into? Heavens, no.

I'll never appreciate them, cherish them, or be proud of them. They did not carry the baby, I did. I am indescribably proud of my body for that.

My body is amazing, stretch marks and other new quirks notwithstanding.

11 months

So...apparently I only post on a monthly basis now. Sigh.

Emma is 11 months old! Less than a month away until she is a whole YEAR old! So strange.

She plays like a toddler. She is very aware of everything, and she plays in a very focused way. We think she is a genius.

To celebrate we bought her a new-to-us crib for a super low price! I'm pretty excited about that because the crib she'd been sleeping in was pretty old, and the mattress wouldn't go low enough. Her chances of throwing herself over the side have decreased by about a billion.

A Few of the Things About Emma That We Find Hilarious/Adorable/Inspiring/Rewarding/ETC:

• She waves. I die. The words "hi", "bye", and "goodnight" are her prompt words. She frequently waves at the mirror and smiles (OH THE CUTENESS). She is really into double waves as well (both hands involved..again, OH THE CUTENESS).
• Her ability to imitate improves daily. We have grunting wars several times throughout the day. 
• She knows no obstacle and is a bit of a climber. She loves to climb on and off my parents' hearth, and if there is something, such as a box, between her and her objective, she will climb on it as much as necessary to accomplish her goal. This is dangerous. 
• Sitting on a bar stool at my mom's the other day while Emma was doing some ground exploration, I was made aware of her unexpectedly close presence when I noticed her little feet kicking in  my periphery--she had climbed over the lowest rungs of the stool I was on and was basically planking on them, unable to move forward or backward. 
• She makes herself laugh. She does this by either doing something hilarious, like throwing her socks down and picking them up again, or by making funny sounds. Sometimes she can entertain herself for minutes at a time.
• She LOVES Jack Donaghy (the dog)....from a distance. Not even a distance really, she just needs a measure of protection. She isn't a fan of sitting alone on the floor where he can just lick her head willy nilly. Her favorites are beating on the windows in the kitchen door when he's on the other side and playing with him through the doggy gate. 
• She watches us to make sure we notice her. She is shy, yet she craves attention. Often this means throwing her head into my neck, then checking to make sure the other person is watching, then going crazy for a few seconds (in which I nearly drop her every. time.), then diving her face into my neck again. Last Saturday she bought me an extra half hour of sleep by playing hard to get with Daddy as he was heading out to work on the yard. Everywhere he walked, she would follow with her head and "talk to him". She even would go towards his location in the room by crawling across the bed (thanks to me for her not crawling right off the edge). She flirted so hard (and I complained so hard), that eventually he just gave in and took her to the living room for some one-on-one cartoon watching so I could sleep ;) ...bless her.
• She has a very mischievous smile.
• Her snuggles are the very best in the history of snuggling babies.
• She is an angry crib stripper. As in, she attempts to yank off her clothing if she's angry enough when she's left to cry in her crib. 
• She is slooooooooooooooooowly grasping the concept of kissing. She tried to make-out with me a few times the last couple days, and I loved it. Open-mouthed baby kisses are the BEST!