If you’re always trying to be normal you’ll never know how amazing you can be.
-Maya Angelou
There’s a little secret I need to share. Sometimes I use Ryan Kate. Not in the ways you may assume. Not by over exposing her in my pictures or using her for promotional purposes – which I’ll admit it, I do. I use her on a much deeper level too.
I use her imagination. I let her run wild with her stories and I hardly ever correct her unless it’s something I think may harm her eventually. I let her tell stories of things that she’s convinced are real. Every once in awhile she flips a switch in me and my creative juices feed off of her. 
I guess, to be honest, it’s no different than getting inspiration from movies, magazines, life events, etc. but it does kind of feel wrong. I feel like I steal away her little thoughts. The only way I know how to keep them hers is by turning them into reality… or as real as we can imagine them to be.
In early October, she began this fascination with elephants. Well, not just any elephant, but baby elephants. One morning she woke up out of a dead sleep and told me that she was holding a baby elephant. She looked around the bed and asked where it went. I love this dream state that she stays in a couple of minutes after she wakes up. It’s almost like she gets to show me what she’s been dreaming. 
Well, here we are in December and her love has not faded. She’s asked for one from Santa, she’s asked for me to take her picture with one, and she’s picked out her yearly Christmas ornament which happened to be (drum roll, please) a baby elephant. 
If you haven’t noticed by now, there isn’t much I wouldn’t do for her. Pretty much anything and everything that she’s ever wanted – she’s gotten. She wanted a puppy; she got Daisy. She wanted a unicorn; she got a pink unicorn for her birthday. If I could figure out a way to get an elephant here for Christmas Day and still be able to feed her for the rest of her life, I would do it in a heartbeat. Some say I spoil her, but seeing her face light up and hearing her talk about it afterwards brings me as much joy as it does her.
So I’ve done the best I could do and I’ve made her dreams a little more tangible.
Since these pictures were composite, I decided to include a couple before and after pictures. 
Raising Ryan Kate 