blame it on this southern weather

kaitmpayne:

I feel like she looks just like me in the top photo and like Gabe in the bottom one. What is it to make a human with somebody? I mean, really. Genetically, how much of her is him and how much is me? How much of those parts will determine what she actually wants to do with all that science? Who will she become? How much of that is hereditary and how much of it is in the way we choose to raise her and the behaviors we choose to display in her presence? How much is just up to her?

What is it to make a human with somebody? What does it mean to look at my favorite person on earth and see parts of one who I don’t even really know anymore staring back? That’s a special kind of heartbreak mixed with a special kind of pride. If he has kids with somebody else one day, how much will they be like her? What if I have kids with somebody else? I don’t want any kids that aren’t just like her. Maybe that’s why I feel like I won’t even bother.

What is it to make a human with somebody? It means we won’t ever get away from each other, not really. If she has kids we will share grandkids. Parent teacher conferences, prom pictures, a wedding or two? He’s going to be there. I hate that. Do I hate that?

She’s both of our very best pieces. I remember being pregnant. We’d take showers and he’d rub the baby shampoo on my pregnant belly while we talked about what we thought she’d look like as the suds ran down and into the drain. Dark blonde hair, curls, green eyes, dimples, fair skin. She’s not at all the girl I imagined, she’s leaps and bounds better. She’s so much more than any expectation we could have entertained. And she’s half him too. She’s half him too.

i spent my entire pregnancy alone thinking about all of the things i would teach my son and wondering what he’d look like and how much he’d gain from me and all of the things i am passionate about, and i’ve spent a good 99.9% of the past three years, one month and eight days attached at the hip to him. as far as i’m concerned, all he did was provide something that i couldn’t produce on my own with the chromosomes that i was born. that’s all he did, everything else about my son is what i’ve instilled in him and gotten the pleasure to watch him grow into every single day.