How I spend the majority of my afternoons: a baby quietly sleeping on my chest and a good book in hand.

It would be incredibly cliche to write a piece detailing just how insanely awe inspiring it is that two people such as ourselves could create another living, breathing, tiny human being.  Along the same lines it would also be cliche to marvel at the journey from zygote to embryo to fetus to person, millions of cells dividing at rapid pace, forming bones and organs and skin and hair, even though it is utterly amazing.

So instead I present you, dear reader, with the consideration of Maddie’s big toe.

Maddie’s big toe is a perfect miniature clone of her father’s big toe.  Everything about it is exactly and unmistakably identical to her father’s.  When considered this means that somewhere, somewhere among millions of genes, lies a singular allele.  This allele is composed of a very specific combination of amino acids, coded in a very particular way, forming a linear protein structure,  laying on the tiniest portion of one of her chromosomes.  Is it this sequence of amino acids, this allele, that determines the very specific appearance of her big toe: an exact miniature of her father’s.

Out of infinite possibilities, out of all the combinations that could have arisen when my chromosomes and Mark’s chromosomes split and combined to form her’s, out of  all mutations that did not occur… we end up with a perfect baby with a perfect foot sporting an exact (albeit tiny) replica of her father’s big toe.

Now that is mind blowing.

Some shots I’ve taken recently. Mommy’s hand, daddy’s feet.