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Two weeks ago, someone left a comment on my blog about how Harlow never smiles. It made me sad.

I looked through my Instagram feed to prove the commenter was wrong, but came up short. Then I looked through my iPhoto library and failed there too.

The truth is, Harlow is going through a bit of a difficult phase right now. She's demanding and has a tough time communicating.

But she does smile. 

Maybe not as often or as easily as Mazzy, but she is much more than a series of evil glares and intense stares.

Harlow smiles when she's being tickled, when she's on the swing, when she's splashing in the bath, and when she's dancing to the Bubble Guppies theme song. She's a physical kid and she's happiest in motion.

She laughs when she chases Mazzy around the apartment and she goes bananas when me and her dad get home from work. Most of her smiles happen when she is running full speed in my direction or jumping up and down on the bed.

Motion is a little hard to capture in a photograph.

To make it even tougher, Harlow's smiles are more likely when a camera isn't present. She smiles when she is looking me straight in the face and not through the lens of my iPhone. She likes to be up close and held. The hardest thing about taking photos of Harlow is standing at a distance. Harlow always wants to close that distance immediately. (Sometimes she wants me, sometimes she is after the phone.)

Regardless, I spent the past fourteen days trying my best to capture Harlow's smile. To show off her adorably lopsided grin.

Harlow might be a little intense for a baby and sometimes misunderstood, but she is also a pretty happy kid.

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Usually, her smile shows off her two lone teeth on the bottom. 

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Or sometimes no teeth at all.

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Sometimes Harlow smiles so big, her whole face scrunches up like a cartoon character. The photo below was her reaction to standing on our balcony for the first time and feeling the wind in her face.

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Harlow's got a dimple in her right cheek.

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Her laughs are loud and contagious.

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She is not a flirt, like Mazzy. She doesn't use her smile to win you over or manipulate.

Harlow smiles when she just can't help herself. 

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I like to think her smiles are more for herself, than for my blog or my instagram feed. She doesn't "smile for the camera", she smiles when she is really feeling it.

Which is totally fine with me.

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