Let's just start off this post with a little honesty.  Yes some of these pictures are "re-runs" from my guest post over at baileynme2, and I'm sure that's like breaking Commandment #2 in a blogger's 10 Commandments, but I don't really care.  It's going to double as my 10 month post for Jocelyn, because they were taken fairly close to that age, and I just don't see myself getting a photo shoot done any time soon, and she's already 10 1/2 months, so 11 months will be here before I know it and I'll have to do those, and so these will have to do. Plus some of them you haven't seen before.  Enough excuses, here she is.

   Hi everyone, Jocelyn here.  Sorry I can't be my usual perky self today because I have a cold.  I'm sneezing, whuffling and sniffling all day long, and it's not very fun.  My two favorite things right now are not eating and not sleeping, so I'm not having the best of weeks. 

   My new thing is peek-a-boo.  I've always found it amusing, but it is WAY more fun when you do it yourself!  Now when Mommy and Daddy lay me down in my crib to sleep, I pull the blanket up over my head and they say, "Where did Jossie go?" and then I pull it down and they are so surprised.  I do it over and over because it is so much fun, but also because it makes them stay, and I don't have to go to sleep as soon!

   I just love to stand up to things, it makes me feel so grown-up.  I also love walking, with Mommy's help of course.  I can clap my hands really well now, and am quick to do it when someone asks me to.  It makes me feel so accomplished.  I still love my bath, and I like to drink the water and suck on old washrags and the shower curtain and pretty much anything Mommy doesn't want me to do.  Makes it more exciting. :) 

    She's a charmer that one.  Somehow, even with this new, crazy "sick child" schedule, and her new-found appetite for NOTHING, I can't help but adore her. I have to admit it though, the last couple of days have been rough.  Not trying to get pity, or be pessimistic, just saying it like it is.  Life is just real sometimes. 
 
   We took our family pictures this evening.  The picture-taking went great, it was the preparations that got a little tedious.  And I couldn't help but wonder as I labored over our outfits and spent quite a bit of time getting ready...What would family pictures look like, if it was the "inner man" that got photographed, rather than the outward?  Can you imagine THOSE Christmas cards?  The siblings scowling because they had to wear uncomfortable shoes, and the father scowling because he had to take pictures at all.  The mother scowling because she couldn't find her favorite scarf and had to settle for her 2nd. And a greeting that read, "Hope your holidays are filled with love, joy, and peace on earth...because ours have been anything but that."

  Imagine if somehow, instead of our combed hair and matchy little outfits, the camera captured the true thoughts and feelings inside.  Would any of us have a suitable picture to send out to everyone we know?  We scramble around, making sure every hair is in place, imperfection disguised, wrinkle ironed out and smudge of dirt wiped clean.  We smile real big until the camera clicks and then....then what?  Do we go back home and speak unkind words, act selfishly and think mean thoughts?  Do we look at others people's Christmas cards and envy their "perfect" life, when they might be fighting even more battles than we are at the moment?  Do we gaze at our own cards with criticism, wishing our families were something they weren't?  Do we gaze at them with pride, thinking somehow we have it better than most everybody else, and we deserve that?

   I love a Christmas card as much as the next person.  But it's a challenge to me to try and think of what my family portrait would look like, if it captured the real me.  And I'm not talking about the Shelley YOU see, because that Shelley will fade away.  That Shelley will be buried in the ground someday, and turn to dust.  No, the real one.  The one that will last forever.  What kind of portrait would she look like?

 That was for free. :)

*P.S. Husband just walked in with flowers and sweet potato fries.  Somehow, he knows just how to make the world a little bit better.