Worth A Thousand Words...

Molly -

Your daddy and I have a tradition:  Every five years, like clockwork, we get our photos taken with a real photographer.  First, it was our engagement and wedding photos... then, five years later, we had our first family photos done... with you in my belly. 

Fastforward five years... so it's time for a real photo session again. 

Don't get me wrong - we've had plenty of family photos taken since you were born... mostly at Picture People or Kiddie Kandids.  They've been great.  But there's something about a real photo shoot with a REAL photographer that I love.  The pictures are always so great.  I'm a sucker for good photography. 

(I just realized that this is a Molly Paige first -- your first real photo shoot!)

At the Trivia Night for your preschool, I bid on a session with a photographer.  I put $35 -- the starting price... and I won!  I was geeked.  That was back in March.  We finally got it scheduled for October (thinking the fall colors would be great) but we were rained out once and the photographer had to cancel on us another time due to a family emergency.

We rescheduled for Saturday and crossed our fingers.  Being early November, the weather was going to be iffy at best.

It was GORGEOUS.  In fact, at 75 degrees, it was warmer and more beautiful than the two dates we tried in October.

We had a blast.  The photographer, Rochelle, was really sweet and loved what a willing model you were.  Funny - turns out that Rochelle is from Goshen - the town next to my hometown!  Small world...

I can't wait to see how Rochelle's photos turned out... because the few I was able to snap just melt my heart...

Seriously?  An elephant at the place Rochelle picked for us to take photos?  Could it be any more perfect for Molly?

Goofing around with Rochelle...

It takes a real man to hold pink balloons...

This next one takes my breath away...

I'm Raising the Octo-Mom

Dearest Molly,

I'm sorry.  I love you very much.  However, there is one request that you currently have that I cannot fulfill:  giving you a little brother or sister. 

As anyone who knows you can attest, you REALLY want to be a big sister.  DESPERATELY.  Whenever you play with friends and their little siblings are around, you mother them so genuinely and sweetly, it's a little ridiculous.  I always imagined that my parents or Daddy's parents would bug encourage us to have more kids... but I never imagined the guilt trip would be from you.

Recent Big Sister Wannabe comments include:

- "Mommy, when am I going to be the big sister?"

- "Mommy, when are you going to have another baby?"

- "Mommy, why aren't you going to have another baby?"

- "Mommy, can I ask Aunt Melissa a favor?  Can she have another baby for us?"

- And my personal favorite, while sitting at the kitchen table:  "Mommy, don't you want to fill our table?  There's one seat empty."

 We started by telling you that we only wanted one baby.  You replied that you wanted a baby too.  Then we told you we only had room in our house for one baby, and that was you.  You quickly countered by promising to share your room with the baby.  (Rats.)  Lately, I've resorted to telling you that Mommy can't have another baby... and I'm hoping we can leave it at that for awhile.

I guess since we're not giving you a little brother or sister to play with, you decided to get creative.  For awhile, you would put Humphrey in your belly and pretend you were the mommy. (This was when you were younger and a lot of your friends' moms were expecting.) Then, you started refering to your stuffed friends as your brothers and sisters.  You started carrying Humphrey around as if he were a real baby -- and you carried him so kindly and gently it would break our hearts.

Then, this weekend, you informed me that you have three brothers and four sisters and Humphrey is the baby brother.  Now, every night, I get a report on what atrocities the brothers have committed against the sisters -- scratching them, breaking their Cinderella toys, teasing them...  Then I have to send the brothers to the time out area, while the girls and Baby Brother Humphrey go off to play.

I can't even wrap my head around how this will play out many, many, MANY years from now.  However, I do imagine that the guilt trip will start a little something like, "Well... since Mom never gave me ANY brothers or sisters... and I was an ONLY child..."
\
And I'll just smile... and say, "Hand me my grandbaby."

Love you, peanut.