Four

I had resolved early on that I would be careful to make sure that each of my children would have the same amount of baby photos, keepsakes, baby books, and so forth as our first child has. I had always heard and observed that subsequent children just don't have the same number of pictures taken. I would even get defensive when people made such comments once Fi was born, and I went out of my way to make sure that she did indeed have at least as many pictures taken.

For I had assumed, maybe as those commenters had and  maybe not, that less pictures came because the parents didn't value them as much. With a first baby everything is new and magical....and maybe with subsequent babies things are just taken for granted....?

Well, I can now definitively say that is not the reasoning.

I have not taken nearly as many pictures of our little Seahorse since he came home from the hospital, as I did of our other children.

and it is certainly not because I don't appreciate the absolute preciousness of these moments......

it's because I appreciate them more than ever.

Because with my first baby, everything was new and magical...

But now I know that even being the fourth baby doesn't make you any less new and magical

and now I know, from experience, just how fast time passes...how quickly these newborn faces change, and too-big socks become too small.....

so I am not taking as many pictures, because I am so busy trying to take those pictures with my eyes, my heart,my every fiber- that I can soak up as much of this preciousness as possible.