She is Me.

After we did the sunflower maze…okay, I don’t know if “did” is the right terminology here, because we definitely didn’t “do” the maze. We went in juuuust far enough to look like we were REALLY in the thick of it, selfie-d, explored, and turned around! 🤣

After we * v i s i t e d * the maze, we drove home hot and exhausted. If we weren’t on our exclusive “Staycation”, we would have come home to AC and ‘toons for the rest of the day. But no. Somehow I found the energy to drag her dinosaur pool out and set it up for some backyard fun! I even setup the umbrella and put on some tunes to make it feel like we were REALLY in the thick of it….😂

Going down a slide is not something I pictured having to teach when I was pregnant. It seems natural to me that you engage your core to stay upright as you swooooosh down. Last year, Waylin went down her first slide at an indoor playground. I didn’t realize that was a learned skill lol. She enjoyed going down the slide backwards instead!

For the longest time, this was her favorite mode of transportation…backwards. 🤣

So, I was REALLY surprised when she showed me that she could go down the waterslide all by herself!

You know, I am absolutely not an expert on parenting, and I don’t even think if I birthed a million kids (😮) that I would be able to claim I was one. But I do think one of the biggest lessons I can say that I have learned (and continue to learn) is that kids do things when they are ready. I know it’s so easy to google how old a kid should be when they reach certain milestones. Trust me, I’ve googled the shit out of everything. And not one time was Waylin in the same age range as what they said…whether she was doing something ahead or behind, the timeline never matched.

Her little face at the end told me how proud she was of herself!

This particular moment that I was able to capture was the moment I realized that she is me.

It always baffled me to see folks commenting on an ultrasound picture saying “Wow, she looks so much like you!” Good to know that I look like black and gray squiggly lines in the outline of an alien! 👽 And of courseeeee there’s all the commentary after she’s born about who she looks like more. I think all of us mamas hope that the baby looks SOMETHING like us because we did all the work of carrying our baby for 9 months of heartburn, insomnia, and back pain.

I could never * see * her looking like me. She just looked like a perfect baby to me. I mean, she couldn’t possibly look like me because my mum told me I was an ugly baby. True story! 🤣 But this afternoon, I could actually see myself in her.

There are so many things that I want her to be that I am AND that I’m not. Although she is a part of me, she is her own person too. Whoever she grows up to be, I know I will love every part of her! ❤