Thank God for Mom Guilt!

Anju had her 3-year old pictures taken today. Now I can finally wipe off my "guilt" list the fact that my other kids were taken to the studio likely 5 times during their first 2 years of life and have photo albums full of 8x10's of babies/toddlers at various stages of development and to date Anju has a couple blow ups of orphanage pics (with mis-matched or wrong sized clothing) and a couple pictures I took in hers. While I think my pics are nice, it's not the same as a well-framed professional shot.

She posed like a true model, and although she was very serious through the whole shoot, she would laugh and smile when the photographer tickled her mother with the "tickle wand" or when she saw her Daddy play peek-a-boo with her doll, Daisy.

At the mall after the photo session, I was looking in JoAnn in the scrapbooking section (again, motivated by guilt in combination with a great sale) and ended up next to a grandma-looking lady who was admiring Anju. It turns out she has a granddaughter the same age as Anju who is also small for her age, and quickly in our conversation it came out that she also has a granddaughter who will soon be 5 who also has the same type of spina bifida Anju has. With one child born with lipomyelomeningocele in every 10,000 births, it isn't really an everyday occurrence.

And, this child lives not far from a good friend of mine in the San Diego area. In fact, the picture she showed me of the girl was taken at the Wild Animal Park only a few miles from my friend's home! Hopefully this mom will contact me, as her child is struggling with toileting issues and this is something I've done research on.

So, my "mom guilt" gets me some beautiful portraits of my princess, and some networking with another sb family. Maybe there is a purpose to it after all?