Dear Beautiful Girl – Hashtag Starbucks

“Dadadadadadada,” you say, charging the window with those eager baby wobble legs, scaling the couch with notable skill and something almost like grace, turning back to grin widely at me as you point a chubby finger at Fave’s blue Volvo pulling up.

“Dadadadadadada.”

How proud you are to know a name, to have a sound to put to a face that links up brain sparks and heart leaps and tongue twistings and sends them shooting out into the air for me to hear and understand. What a miracle, these little connections, this massive leap.

“Mama. Mmmmmmama.”

Something I couldn’t possibly love more about you is the way your baby babbles sound so distinctly perfectly like words you aren’t really trying to say.

“Are you ready to go?” I ask. “Putin. Putin. Baba button icing wardrobe Putin.” No more mornings with Jon Stewart for you, savvy girl.

“Starbucks!” you accuse a flock of geese as we pass them. “Starbucks button button! Motto! Farce!”

How I will miss the nonsense of these strangely sensible sounds, when your tongue and your mind sort things out and talking becomes just another thing that you do, and listening becomes a privilege that I remind myself of in my rougher moments.

“You, little girl, are my very best of things,” I whisper.

“Starbucks,” you assure me, “Hashtag starbucks.”

And so we go.

The images in this post are by my new friend Ashley, who is challenging her subjects to allow her to capture their honest, messy, flawed and lovely actual lives. I adore the idea, and the images that came from our day with her (I’ll be sharing many more of them in weeks to come). For more of her gorgeous work, or to get an early look at the rest of our shoot, visit www.weenoblog.com