18 months going on 18 // Life with a Baby
18 months ago she came into the world with quite the dramatic entrance. Thirty something hours of labor, an ambulance ride and a near C section and she was (finally) here. All 9lbs of her. Little did I know that this dramatic entrance into the world was foreshadowing what was about to come.
At a year and a half, Zaiya is spirited, hilarious, very opinionated, strong and quite demanding (she directs the family on where to sit, how to fluff her pillow up for her, etc) along with being the most loving and affectionate little person. She will often say “momma”, wrap her arms around me and give me a big slobbery kiss. Strangers stop us to say how cute she is and although we are biased, not everyone in the world can be wrong about that. From about a year to now, things have been getting better and better. She mostly sleeps through the night, has learned to walk/run, is talking a LOT (bubbles! Is her favorite right now) and likes to copy everything we do. She tries to say “I love you” but its sounds more like “duh beh” which melts hearts. We recently figured out that “DIE” does not in fact mean we are raising the devil but that she wants to go “OUTSIDE”. She loves riding up and down escalators about a million times, pushing all the buttons on elevators, wearing gumboots with every outfit, screaming “HI” to whomever we are talking to on Skype very obnoxiously over and over again, and being tucked in with a fluffy blanket –the girl likes to be comfortable, what can I say?! She eats like a champ, loves throwing rocks, going down slides and swimming. I can’t even fathom that she’s only been earth side for 18 months because I have no idea what we used to do before her, but at the same time I wonder how the heck my little baby is not a baby anymore. She’s turning into a little girl. Stop growing up because I can’t take it anymore. That being said, you couldn’t pay me enough to go back and do that baby thing again. I need my sleep and that shit is insane.
Today was a bit of a rough day for her because she scraped up her knees pretty badly (yet again) and got scratched on her face by a kitty at daycare. Like the tough chick she is, she didn’t shed one tear. I had big plans to do an 18 month birthday shoot but frankly I’m exhausted. It’s wedding season and life is just crazy. Instead we hung out in our backyard and BBQ’d, and I took a few shots of our everyday life. Yes we hang out by the trash because Zaiya likes to throw rocks, no I haven’t washed her face all day and our yard/house is kind of a disaster most days. But boy are we happy and enjoying our time together.
Happy 18 months sweet pea.
