The Picture I Didn’t Take

Dear Daughter,

You were picture perfect this morning. I woke up and saw you laying there, your chubby cheeks looked extra chubby, your little mouth with its full pink lips seemed especially kissable, and those long dark eyelashes lay gently on your lower eyelids, covering those big blue captivating eyes of yours. While you dreamed, I watched my picture perfect baby, in a moment that I could never revisit unless I captured it, but I was a bad mom and I didn’t take a picture.

I didn’t take a picture… nope, not even one. So, unlike me, you’ll never see yourself the way I did on Aug 2nd, 2014. Unlike me, you’ll never know just how long your eyelashes looked, or how rosy those scrumptious cheeks were in the early morning light.

When you grow up, I will not be able to show you how many people liked your photo on Instagram, or how many commented on the image of a sleeping angel they saw on Facebook, because there wasn’t one. I didn’t post a thing, because there was nothing to post.

Instead I just sat there and watched you sleep. I looked at each perfect little feature on your perfect little body. I watched your little tummy rise and fall with each breathe you breathed. I watched your eyes dance under their lids as you dreamed dreams I will never hear about, but that I can only imagine were as beautiful as you.

Did you know you smile in your sleep? Those full pink lips dimple your cheeks suddenly with each sleeping grin and I can’t help but smile back. I wonder what made you smile, did you dream of me? Or of your daddy? I bet you were dreaming of milk. You sure love your milk, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it is what occupies your dreams. I hope you love me and daddy more than milk though…sometimes I wonder.

You looked so soft and gentle in that moment. Last night you were a bundle of energy, a BIG bundle of energy, you wore me out! All you wanted to do was crawl, and play with toys and eat cheerios and climb all over me. But this morning, you just looked soft, like a soft, perfect, cherub princess.

You are gorgeous. I know you grew in my belly, but there is no doubt in my mind that you were designed by God. Only he could make something so intricately perfect, I really had very little to do with it.

I should have taken a picture of you, I really should have. Then everyone could enjoy seeing you the way I saw you. But I decided to be selfish today and keep that moment all to myself. I hope one day you will forgive me. I know one day you will understand. Because there are some moments that are too remarkable–too divine even–too be captured by earthly technology. Some moments can only fully be captured by the soul. You sleeping in all your innocence was one of those moments.

So please don’t be upset when you get bigger and I tell you how special today was too me but that I have no picture to give you; no way of showing you what I saw. Please please don’t be angry. I know it probably won’t make sense to you how I could love how you looked so much, but not lock that image in time.

I will never regret not taking a picture. A picture is priceless, but my moment with you this morning, uninterrupted by getting the right angle or finding the right lighting, was even more priceless. It is now more than some fleeting image that will fade with time. Now it is a vibrant, undying memory etched in my heart and will stay with me forever.

So my sweet daughter, if I ever am a “bad mom” in the future and neglect to get that perfect picture of you opening your birthday present. Or I forget to capture you trying your first sour lemon or ice cream cone. If I somehow forget to film your first steps or the way your hair blows in the wind as you ride your bike with two wheels for the first time. If for some reason there are pictures missing from your scrapbook that according to the “perfect mothers scrap-booking guide” should be there, please know that they are not there because I was there; there with you fully and completely, taking in every single moment with you, and not just behind a camera screen.

Please remember that I was taking each and every one of those pictures with my heart.

Love Forever & Ever,

Your Mommy