needless

i have an advanced degree in the art of worrying. i can do all sorts of elite mental gymnastics to rationalize my way to any horrible conclusion. home alone? well there is certainly a roving band of 9 murderers outside my house waiting for the night that i forget to hide a butcher knife under jesse's pillow. see a laughing pair of teenage boys drive past me while i am jogging? they are definitely making vicious fun of how slow and cellulite-y i am and probably thinking of beating me up just for funsies. feeding the horses that live on our street apples? one is probably rabid and is going to bite judah's face off with his big evil horsey teeth if i don't speak up and warn jesse to keep his distance.

jesse says i am a bet-hedger. if i worry about it before hand and something bad happens at least i will have the consolation prize of, "oh, well i knew it." and if it doesn't happen, then i am wrong, but yay! no calamity has struck. the best example of this is that ever since i was 16 when i get into my car alone at night i just say, "i know you're back there, and i am not afraid of you, and you better get the hell out before make you regret it!" that way if there was a kidnapper waiting for me he would be so freaked out at my mind powers and threats that he would flee, and if not, well, no one needs to know that i was talking smack all by my lonesome! except now you all do.

it's a gift. (no it's not. it's insane and fearful and sinful and NOT how am supposed to live. much prayer has gone into this issue for me and god has helped me over much of it, so now i can at least laugh about how ridiculous it is even if it's still my tendancy).

this is all to say that when i was pregnant with layla i worried a lot that i just wouldn't or couldn't love her as much as i did judah. everybody with more than one kid told me that it doesn't make sense, but your heart just instantly doubles to fit this new baby inside of it, and how even though you haven't known and loved your younger ones for as long, every bit of that same intense love that you have grown for months and years with your older kid(s) springs up so fast once a new one is in your arms.

but i still worried. i mean i thought i never wanted a girl at all. if there was going to be a freakish exception to "mothers love all their children" it would of course be me. i worried about birth defects, cosmetic imperfections, fussiness, neediness, anything and everything that i was afraid would stop me from loving her enough. granted, she was perfectly healthy and is the easiest baby ever so who knows how i might have handled those issues (see? i am doing it again...hedging for the next kid).

the point is (cripes, just spit it out!) everyone was right. i should have spent all that mental energy one something better like world peace or mahjong because my heart knew what to do with this new little addition.

i really don't think i could possibly love her more. every nerve in my being starts buzzing with joy when i really think about this little goober-bomb and what she means to me. i never had anything to worry about.

9 expressions captured in a period of 10 seconds:

this video almost made my milk come back to life when jesse sent it to me:

I LOVE THIS BABY!!!!