what all the fuss is about*

Meet Molly Shayne, the Center of the Universe. She's seven weeks and a day old today. This is from the first round of studio photos Shane took. My husband is a professional photographer, so I am a very lucky doting mom. The technological marvel is that she had a terrible case of baby acne when we took this. Props to Adobe Photoshop.

I can't have enough photos of her. I am struck with the need to remember all of her faces. She has so many. The very first photograph, minutes after her birth, shows Popeye face, also called Nursey face. There is Princess Pootey Pants face, which is scrunchy and bright red. There is Sleepy-on-the-Boob face, which is a little drunken looking, with eyes rolling back in her head. There is Travel Face, which is only seen by me riding in the back seat with her and the tilt of her head in the carseat from that angle highlights the shape of her eyebrows and makes her look fine and delicate. There is Rocking Chair face, which is my favorite- she pushes out her little head from the cradle of my arms and I can see the shape of her face and her tiny neck. It's like a turtle but cuter, and her eyes are big as the moon.

This time is so poignant and rare and precious it's almost painful. She's more mine now than she'll ever be again as she grows into her own person and looks outside her mother's embrace for comfort and nourishment. The separation anxiety I feel at times is overwhelming. I'm having a hellish time with work, and the two times we sat through a movie I was so distracted I couldn't properly appreciate Johnny Depp or Hugh Jackman. I'm trying to focus on the time I can be with her, and savor this short phase of our lives, this beautiful infancy of our new family.

*My friend Heather once told me she knew I was really drunk because I'd just ended a sentence with a preposition.

(originally posted 7.18.06 on greennewmama)