Love, Laura Beth

Let's talk smiles.

Smiling is the universal language. It every culture, country, and galaxy it means the same thing. Happiness. Pleasure. Enjoyment.

In elementary school, a smile means an insta-friend. A smile across a classroom or from a swing on the playground means one thing. It starts with a smile and if it is reciprocated back...bam. friends.

In high school, a smile from a passing mcdreamy boy could alter your entire day. It could change your entire focus and embark you on a rollercoaster of emotions of deciphering what that exact smile "meant".

As adults, smiles are exchanged between lovers, friends, co-workers, and strangers. Each smile can mean something different. A hello, good-bye, i love you, i'm so glad you're here, you're hilarious, you look beautiful, you have something in your teeth.... A smile means happiness. However, the first smile from your child means something entirely different...I am not kidding when I say the first time Lilly smiled at me ( not the gassy or dreaming kind) it changed my life. A smile from a baby does not only mean happiness, to me it was a joy-injected I love you and thank you.

I was sitting on the couch with little miss balanced on my legs. She is soothed by music so I had CMT on and we were counting down the top twenty. I had to see if Carrie was number one. She was, der. I may or may not have been signing....:) I was moving her arms and legs to the music and she was staring at me intently. I lifted her arms in the air to match the raise of pitch in the song and then she smiled-- eyes squinting, cheeks puffing, gums glaring. It was beautiful and instantly brought tears to my eyes. It was the same flooding emotion that I felt the first time I saw lilly in the hospital--immediate and overwhelming.

To me, that smile meant a number of things. It meant she was happy, she loved me, and it meant that she appreciates all that we do for her. For the past 7 weeks, we have spent almost every waking moment caring for her. All the while, the only true emotions we've seen from her were displeasure, hunger, and pain via crying. I would NEVER trade any moment of my time with her these past seven weeks....but ya know, it's hard not seeing any happiness emitted. I'm not saying that Lilly hasn't been happy for the past seven weeks. How could she not? She's been loved on everyday all day by very awesome people ::wink::. Up until that smile, she had not been able to show her happiness. I needed it. That smile was confirmation that we are doing things right. That smile was her way of communicating her love. To be completely honest, it was a turning point in our relationship. My love for her grew deeper. I was consumed with joy myself after seeing it. I craved another!!! Britney was singing over and over in my mind "gimme more, gimme me, gimme gimme more!" I was hooked, and her smile was my drug.

This happened about a week ago. I've seen lots of smiles since. I have to act like a complete ding-dong to get them, and if you were spying on me in my house I would be completely embarrassed. You'd think that I had 'dun lost my mind'. I ALMOST caught a smile in the picture but ::sigh::, I was a second too late. My dern camera just isn't fast enough for my darlin.


I WILL CATCH ONE THIS WEEK. *SWER*


:):):):):):)