Mirror, mirror

I love how much my daughter loves herself.  I know that might sound crazy but she honestly does.  Anytime she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror she cannot help but smile and giggle.  For her 1st birthday I had pictures of her hanging up EVERYWHERE and every time we'd walk past any of them she would lean forward, point, smile and giggle.  She loves what she sees and with good reason...she is beautifully and wonderfully made.

But I can't help and wonder when that will stop.

We all, especially girls and women, reach a point where we not only dislike what we see in the mirror or in photos, we actually detest it.  At what point will my BEAUTIFUL daughter cringe when she looks in the mirror or run to hide from a camera?  And why?  Why will she suddenly switch from smiling and laughing at the beautiful girl that she sees to judging, hiding from and covering up her gorgeous face.

I guess that the most impactful thing that I can do is to model good behavior for her.  I will resist all urges to wrinkle up my nose when I look at myself in the mirror, I won't hide from cameras or talk about how terrible I look in photos or complain about looking or feeling "fat". I will work on not shunning compliments - instead of deflecting when someone says something nice about me I will instead say, "thank you" (as difficult as that will be).  I will do this because I want my daughter to do the same someday.  

I know that I can't totally keep her from judging herself in the future but for now I'm going to encourage her self adoration as much as I can as I never want it to end.