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olive and ivory


Have I mentioned my mad crazy week.
Camp, graduation, workshops, VBS, O’s birthday party, Tess’s surgery, concert (Imogen Heap), and packing up for 2 weeks of vacation. I am busy and stressed and not sure that I am going to make it.
But it is also the beginning of Creative Bootcamp….which is something I can’t pass up.
Two weeks of challenges and assignments to push me to be better at this.
I’m not sure that I’ll get to post everyday, or even what kind of internet access I’ll have next week….but I’m going to try.
So bear with me. My intention is to take a photo and write a post on the topic everyday.
But.
Tonight after soccer games and bible studies and my subject is already asleep….so it will have to be a photo from earlier in the week. The first topic: ivory.

My son has olive skin that most people spend lots of time under fake lights to get. It is barely June and he is already a warm light tea colored brown that I will never be. His brown eyes and blond hair make him stand out even more. If I forget to spray him down with sunscreen he rarely burns. Even in this crazy Texas heat.

My daughter on the other hand is clear. Her skin is ivory and fair and she has a hint of red hair to go with it. We can go outside to get the mail and she burns. She is sensitive to the sun, to lotions, to touch, to heat and the cheap diapers. And it doesn’t end with her skin.
She is a little more sensitive all the way around. She cries more. Wakes up easier. And is picky about her food, her shoes and her baby dolls.

The other day I noticed something that I had been hoping for all along.
A little brown spot up by her left eye. Two spots actually.
And when I counted today I found eleven.

My little girl is going to have freckles.
I love freckles. It is one of my few features that I really like.
I have a smattering of them. And in the sun even more appear. And I have never once tried to lighten them with lemon juice.

And my fair skinned baby girl has eleven.
Exactly eleven.
Tomorrow maybe it will be fourteen or fifteen.
And soon I won’t be able to keep count.
Tomorrow she will be different.
And soon she will be grown and have more freckles and secrets and hopes than I can keep track of. There will be parts of her that I won’t know.

But today. I know every inch of her ivory skin.

boot camp
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Comments

Integral Photography said…
I teared up a little at the end. So sweet. It does go by so fast! I LOVE LOVE LOVE reading your blog, Michelle! You really have a gift! Thanks for sharing it...
June 7, 2010 at 5:52 PM
Corinne Cunningham said…
So lovely, knowing them inside and out, savoring them and their traits that are new and change daily :)
June 7, 2010 at 7:01 PM
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