The Adventures of the Garden Sprites

Who of you mommies out there will ever forget that first moment of holding your first baby in your arms for the first time, or your second or your third because I don't think it becomes any less special even if it is the second or third time you've held your newborn. I will never forget the first time they put Mackenzie in my arms, I was shaking so much I was scared I was going to drop her. But after so many months of waiting to hold her it was something not easily described or easily forgotten and although she is already almost 5, I still get the same pleasure from just holding her. And it was the same with Reagan three and a half years later. Unfortunately there are many ladies who are unable to experience the joy of holding their own babies in their arms for the first time and it is these ladies to whom my post goes out tonight. There are also so many women who have babies so easily but don"t appreciate them or neglect them and I often wonder at the unfairness of that. ...

I am unfortunate to live in a different town to both my brothers and my parents and it is rarely that we are all together. We recently had one of our almost yearly get togethers and I took as many photos as I can, especially of the kids with Uncle "Iainy" as Mackenzie so lovingly calls him. The weekend we spent with him she followed him around like a little puppy and did not lose an opportunity to sit next to him! Uncle Iainy! Here are the Roberts' and the Williams' all together.

I have inherited a box of all the family photographs and have been systematically sorting them out and trying to find out whos who... not an easy task as a lot of the photographs are from the early 1900"s and before. All my ancestors. Somebody once told me that you'd be lucky to be a face in somebody's album one day but its amazing how genes come through the generations and appear when you least expect them. I studied genetics at varsity so I understand all the science behind genes and heredity but genetics is not just science. It is also your sister or brother or son or daughter, the people behind the genes... While sorting through these photos I came upon a picture of my paternal grandmother at about the same age as Reagan and I was struck by the similarities between them, in fact it could be a photo of the same toddler. Reagan is the only grandchild on both sides to have brown eyes and both my grandmothers had brown eyes too. But I found myself wishing that they could ...