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We call you Waywee. It’s not the most unique of nicknames. Not really all that clever either. But it’s what the affection affords when we look at you. It just comes out naturally. It’s what we say when we see these faces.These smiles. It’s a reflection of what all your great big joy in that itty bitty body does to our ever-expanding hearts.
You smile for the camera less and less these days. I happened to capture these few snapshots in a candid moment of baby happiness in which you chose to ignore the Nikon in my hands. These faces show what you look like most of the time. They aren’t posed. They are so YOU…first thing in the morning, hair a mess, still in your jammies, just happy to be alive and loved.
This smile is usually accompanied by hand-slapping on whatever you’re holding on to. It’s one of your silly smiles, for when you feel goofy and full of energy and you just want someone to pay attention and notice how cute you are.
This one is a general contendedness smile. It’s the one you give back to us when we smile at you just to show you we love you, when we aren’t being especially silly or trying to illicit laughs. It means you know we love you and you love us too. Sometimes you Coo and start talking right after giving us one of these.
And this one? The infamous, scrunch nose smile. It’s everyone’s favorite. It accompanies the height of your excitement and joy, your ecstatic moments, and it’s almost always accompanied by excited breathing in and out through your nose. It makes us laugh all the time.
Pics like these are the ones I can stare at forever. I go back to them over and over again because they’re almost like looking at the real you. They make me grin. And sigh. And determine that I’m going to go right now and wake you up so I can rock you for a while at 2am in the morning… but then resolutely decide that I better let you sleep and put myself to bed so that I can wake up that much sooner and hold you again.
You totally melt me, Ways. I love you so much. I hope, whatever mistakes I make as your Momma in the years to come, that you always always always know how much.