We long for details. Clues as to how we started our lives. Her words pelt me -- "What did I sound like when I cried? How did you hold me? Did I fit in your arms?". It's a furious digging, hoping if we close our eyes long enough we'll stumble upon something. Something we lived with our bodies but our brains just can't remember or know. I have clumsily forgotten important things. Only eight years back to the beginning of my babies, and I have to push-push-push my mind to remember. The haze of Jane's room. The sound of her rounding out new words. The way the morning puddled quiet light on our floor. Thankfully the past is smeared in our now. Pieces of baby are etched in their big kid bodies. More times than not - a jolt of Jane's once smallness will still fill the crook of my arm.

No matter which baby I photograph, their blank, beautiful slate jogs the melody of my children's growing-up-song. There is healing in meticulously recording another's beginning. Taking picture after picture. Watching a once-again mother, or sister, lost in the skin, the hair, the babyness of one that's new. It helps me scrape the walls. Peel back the layers. And remember all the things my skin isn't strong enough to hold.