bad mommy! bad!

easter bunny baby
Originally uploaded by je ne sais quois.

Okay, yes. Yes! I do horrible, humiliating things to my children that they will hate me for when they are teenagers.

With Will I seemed to need to photograph his early bathing experiences ad nauseam, and with Adelaide, it appears I must put her in ridiculously cute costumes and make her submit to my photographic will.

But how did it happen? How did I become a mother exploiting the chubby cherubic baby girl I love? Well...it all just came together -- I got the diaper cover for like a quarter at a garage sale. And then, one fateful day at Target...it happened. I walked by the ever-tempting junk at the dollar spot and I saw them. Pink. Fuzzy. And ridiculously adorable.

It was just all laid out for me, right there...and then, I did it. I picked up the pink bunny ears and placed them on her head. And my conscience spoke to me. NO! it said. NO! This is wrong! You cannot do this to your daughter!

But then...well, there was an ever so slight giggle from behind me. I turned to see a woman looking adoringly at my daughter.

"I shouldn't," I said to her, pleading with her to agree with me. "I shouldn't...it's just wrong!"
She smiled. "I have three boys," she said, still smiling, but now with an ever so slight look of longing twinkling in her laughing eyes. "If I had a girl, I would do it, too."

And there. She had done it. Sealed my daughter's fate as a baby bunny frozen in photographic time. With only the 25 cent bunny diaper cover to beckon me, I was safe. I had bought it, yes, but it had sat, dormant, for a week. It was the ears that did it. The combination of the two...well, it was too potent for any mother to resist. Like muses from the Odyssey, they sang to me of the fleeting moments of babyhood, the cuteness that it would be, and the realization that no child at all aware of themselves would consent to such a photo. Poor Adelaide. I was just too weak to resist!

I suppose I could have just taken the photos and kept them to myself. I could have sat back, admired my work, and gone on with life. But alas, I am weak! The grandparents...they're so far away! Her aunt and uncle...they would just love to see this. And there it went. To my flickr page, and now, to my blog. I won't tell you all there are more photos of her like this if you go to the flickr page, though. That too would be wrong.

My consolation lies in the fact that one, she is a girl. This isn't Ralphie from "A Christmas Story" bedecked in pink fuzziness at the age of eight. And two...well...okay, maybe there isn't a number two. Maybe I just need to admit to myself that I have done it for my own satisfaction and be done with the guilt.

Or maybe I should store these away for when she's in high school and they ask for pictures of her as a baby for the obligatory section in her senior yearbook. I bet looking back then, I will be glad I did it.

At least that's what I'm telling myself now. Because I am glad now, really. I love it, and I am going to enjoy it. So no guilt, right? Just loving that I have a beautiful baby...who can't argue yet.