Don't Forget the People.

It's Emma's 6-month birthday this weeks, folks. 

Half a year.

In honor of this week, I'd like to post daily some advice that has helped us get this far with Emma. Most of these will have to do with -- shocking -- baby stuff. 

And let's be honest, it might not happen every day this week.

But we're going to try.

Today's is simple. Less advice than an observation.

Don't forget the people.

This is something that I, and I suspect, every new mom struggles with. We take so so many photos of our new babies (or not new babies, as the case may be). I have thousands of Emma -- seriously thousands.

But proportionally, there are very few of those that contain a person other than Emma.

And when you think about it, that's quite sad. When I look through photos of myself as a baby or a kid, sure, I love seeing how small I was. But what really gets me, especially as I get older, is looking at my parents in the pictures. My mom seriously wore those glasses? Look how skinny my dad was! When I was Emma's age now, my mom had already lost ALL her baby fat. She was in a swimsuit! What.

When preparing for my grandmother's funeral last month, my mom called me.

"Do you have a photo of the four generations: Bluejay, myself, you, and Emma?"

My heart sank.

"No. I hoped you did. I didn't want to ask you because I was afraid that you wouldn't, either."

We both started crying.

We have a photo of my grandmother as a baby with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.

My mom has a photo of herself as a baby with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.

I have a photo of myself as a baby with my mom, grandma, and great-grandma.

The series stops at Emma.

And we were all together -- once. Only once. And we missed that opportunity.

"I've learned something, going through all these photos, getting ready for this funeral," my mom said.

"I have so so many pictures of you and your brother as babies and kids -- but most of the time, you only see a pair of arms holding you. I was so focused on taking a photo of my baby that I forgot to include my mother in the picture. I zoomed right past her."

Don't do that. Don't zoom past the face holding the baby to focus only on the baby. Take dozens and dozens of pictures of just your baby, of course -- the cheeks, the eyelashes, the chubby fingers.

But don't forget the people. It's the people who make our lives what they are, and it's the people around your baby that will make your child who he or she is. Don't exclude them.