1000 Words

Alyssa has been assigned a timeline project for school. She has to create a timeline of her life, highlighting the major things that have happened to her.

Obviously, we started with her birth. She found a non-embarrassing picture of her from when she was an infant. We moved on to when she was nine months old and we moved to a new house. She cut out a picture of that house with her and me in front of it (for the record, those pronouns are grammatically correct…just saying.)

By the time we got to the major event of her becoming a big sister, I was in the garage looking for baby pictures of Olivia. Yes, yes, we’ve been in our current house for over two years and there are STILL boxes in the garage that need to be unpacked and sorted. Sue me.


Alyssa wanted a picture of Olivia as a newborn to attach to her timeline. I found one immediately and offered to her. Alyssa took one look at it and declared it too creepy to take to school.

Olivia, on the other hand, was fascinated by this picture. The picture was taken when she was maybe six hours old. She was already at the larger hospital where she’d spend eleven days in their NICU. She was attached to monitors, had tubes in her mouth, an oxygen canula in her nose, tape on her face and hands and belly to hold the tubes and wires and an IV in her arm.

She stared at this picture for the rest of the evening, carrying it with her from the kitchen table to the couch. Even as we started reading the three books I read each evening, Olivia would stop me every so often to ask questions about that baby, her, in the picture.

I’ve been telling her the story of her birth and how sick she was for years. I’ve always kept it simple, explaining that she had to be in the hospital for a few days to get well when she was a tiny baby.

But this picture seemed to really bring it home to her.

She wanted to know why there was tape on her face. Why was she wearing a hat? Was she naked? Did she not have eyes when she was born? She wanted to know if I was there with her. Where was her daddy?

I answered all her questions. I explained that the tape was on her face to keep the tubes in place and keep her from putting at them. She was wearing the had because we wanted to keep her head warm. I pointed out the diaper she was wearing. I told her that of course she had eyes, they were just closed because she was very tired, that being born was a lot of work for little babies. I told her that as soon as I was able, I was right there with her at the hospital and her daddy was there as often as he could be too.

She only put the picture down when it was time for me to rub her back right before bed. But the instant she woke up this morning, her first question was, “Where is the picture of me when I was a sick baby?”

Once she had it back in her grasp, the questions began again. She wanted to know if she had baths while she was in the hospital.

I replied that of course she did. The nurses brought me a tiny little tub and I bathed her every chance I got. I told her she loved her baths even then. She grinned at this response.

This picture made Olivia’s birth story that much more real for her. Yes, I can tell the story over and over and over again but seeing for herself how little, how sick she was gives her a visual that my words can’t. It makes it clearer to her how far she’s come, how amazing she really is.

This picture is definitely worth more than a thousand words.