That picture? If I could frame their childhood, that’s what the print would look like.
We’re all dressed up in clothes that we went shopping for the day before. Even though they were begging me to leave by the end of the 3 hour shopping trip, I loved when Emma would lace her fingers through mine walking through the mall. Or, how Lexi straight up told me my dress was ugly.
I love that even though I didn’t push for it, both of them settled on that same green dress immediately. While I didn’t get patent leather shoes and Easter hats like the little girls in the purple dress in the mall, I still got a little bit of my matching baby girls.
I love Lexi’s long hair and her bare feet because that’s just Lexi, kicking off shoes wherever they land and swinging that hair she says we’re never allowed to cut.
I love that Lexi’s not wearing her jacket like Emma’s because we can’t find it. It’s missing somewhere under a pile of who knows what in our house. Emma’s was rescued late last evening from a friend’s house where she left it Wednesday night.
Emma’s wearing sandals she didn’t wear to church because the sole was coming out of her dress shoes—the same ones from last year. We had to hot glue the soles down 10 minutes before church because they kept coming up and irritating her. I told her she could throw them away if she would just get through Easter with them.
I can see Emma’s new earrings she bought through her hair. She wanted “dangly ones” like a big girl and used her own money to pay for them. Her left ear is getting infected because she says she has a bad habit of twirling it.
I love that I’m wearing a dress that I bought because I love it. I didn’t have to call anyone to see what they thought and I ignored Lexi when she didn’t like it. It’s hard for a people pleaser when you have to look yourself in the mirror in the dressing room and just answer, “What do you think of it?”
I love so much that we’re laughing because Lexi kept running her little fingers up the back of my knee just to aggravate me and make me laugh while Mom was taking a picture. Just. like. her daddy.
Her daddy, might I say, who was off working. I sure do miss him in this picture but that’s the sacrifice we make. The three of us girls find ourselves alone a lot on weekends. I love our girl time and this picture reminds me of those moments.
I want so much for my girls to remember me like this—forgetting hot-glued shoes and lost jackets—and just laughing for no other reason than they wanted me to.