My Baby Is Growing Up - Chapel Hill Baby & Child Photographer Corey Williams

I find that my kids grow up in big leaps. Maybe that's not really how it happens. But that's how it feels to me. I feel like I blink, and all of a sudden, they understand irony, make adult jokes, and ask me if I "get" things.

I desperately want to give my children the gift of growing with my blessing. I want to cheer on their changes, their successes, their failures - each and every step. But it's a fight with my darker, truer nature. The part of me that wants to hide them away and keep them little, purely so they can be mine forever.

It's whenever I turn my lens on them that I see them as they really are. The way I see the other children I photograph. The other day, after my cousin Christi left, I photographed the WG. Her brother has been doing a fair amount of modeling lately, and with the permanent teeth in (gap and all) I thought we'd update the portfolio with her agent.

And there she was. Dancing and twirling on the backdrop. Looking right into my camera, with great intensity. So spunky, saucy and full of joyful play. She's a tween, though she's just seven, feeling out what it means to be a girl. She's an individual, full of giggles and bright dancing eyes.

I love her so, so much. More, in fact, every day.