I’m participating in the mini-swap! How fun! I heard about it last year, but this year, we’re joining in.

SECRETS SECRETS

We love to have something to whisper in our household. Ethan is always deciding to tell us a secret, and usually when that little mouth gets up to my ear, he blanks out and whispers, “I love you mommy.” Not a bad secret 🙂 Jocelyn’s secret usually consists of silence, or “I have a SECRET!” whispered way too loud, so that when she approaches your ear, the parent is half listening and half trying to stay ready to pull back so as to protect the eardrums.

This morning (or maybe it was last night?) however, I heard her shout over to daddy, “I need to tell you a SECRET about how I SLEPT IN MY BED!”

So. Some concepts of “secret” still being worked out 🙂

BEDTIME

After jammies and stories and tucking in and everything is done and I’m standing at the door and say to Ethan, “Have a good sleep,” he is sooooo tickled pink to reply, “SLEEP TIGHT! DON’T LET THE BED BUGS BITE!” *(cackle cackle cackle)*

Another game we play is he lays in bed with all the covers down at his feet. He puts his arms up over his head, and his pookie bear is carefully laid down right next to him. I proceed to pull up the sheet and blankies one by one, up to the headboard and over his face and arms. After each one, he says, “Now??” and I say, “Not yet!!” until all the blankies are cover him up and only little fingers at the very top are showing. Then I say, “NOW!” and he puts his arms down, which then tucks all the blankies around him nice and snug under his armpits, and usually his pookie bear is poking out just right as well. Then we say, “Now you’re ALL SNUGGLED IN!”

I’ve done it a few times for Jocelyn, but she’s not that into it. However, after the story has been read, which takes place in the rocking glider chair in her room, I usually say, “Shall I toss/throw you into bed?” she says, “NO! THROW/TOSS me into bed!” (whichever one I DIDN’T say, is however she corrects me.) The I snuggle her up in my arms, and as I rock, I say, “1…” (chair goes back,) “2…” (chair goes back..) “THREE!” (stand up with the girl). Then I walk her over to the light switch and turn off the light with her foot which is sticking out of my bundled up girl-in-the-arms. If I miss this step, she usually corrects me, “TURN OFF THE LIGHT! WITH MY FOOT!” And then as I approach the bed, she says, “Do, ‘a-one! a-two! a-three!” and then I swing her in an exagerated baby-rocking motion and count, and then on three, and faux-toss her into the bed while she giggles with glee. Then a series of questions and answers goes on about which dolly/bear she would like to accompany her, whether or not sheets and covers are required, or which one, “Sheets?” “NOOOO!” “Blankey?” “The PINK one!” and then after she is all tucked in, kisses are administered (to girl and dolly/bear) and I can take my departure.

THE THINGS YOU LEARN

I decided that while digital photos are wonderful, I do miss the actual PHOTOS lying around the house in an organized fashion, say, a photo album. In the worst case scenario, if hard drives crash irreparably in the house and flickr HQ is hit by photo-backup-targetting missiles, we would have no record of .. well, a lot of shit. So, my project for the last few days have been to go through the photos for 2006 to pick which ones I like a ton, and get them ready for printing.

Doing this on flickr is pretty much futile, because often, I do a massive convert from RAW, shove up to flickr with no type of processing. So I would tag the ones I liked there, only to have to find them on my computer and fiddle with them, so might as well ignore flickr. I have a program called Breezebrowser that I quite like for simple browsing and conversion, but it doesn’t do any photo fiddling or any advanced type of tagging/album type stuff, so that was out. I’ve been meaning to try out Google’s picasa software, which now, I have done, and I must say, I quite like it. I can look through the photos easily from thumbnails, then I can look at each one specifically and it has a good bit of fiddling tools, such as crop, STRAIGHTEN (omg i love this one), fill light, and a very handy “i’m feeling lucky!” which does an auto correction of a lot of stuff (contrast, saturation, etc.) I can do these changes, and then undo them later if I want, as it doesn’t actually change the original files. Since I work in the RAW format, it is also very handy in that it does it all in raw also. I can add photos to my “2006 photoalbum” album, and it doesn’t move any files or try to reorganize my photos, which I like. When I have all the pictures selected in the album and properly fiddled with for the best looking results, I can go to that folder and tell it to export, and it will export all the RAW photos (which are physically located all over the place on my hard drive, mind you and would take me FOREVER to track them down manually) to JPG to a folder I specify. Then they’ll all be right there for me to upload to costco.com/snapfish’s website to print, and I’ll be able to go pick them up at costco on my way home the next day. Along with a couple of photo albums. 🙂

So, while now the software is all handled, the hard drive space is NOT… I had to grab the photos from 3 different locations in our collective computer consciousness in our household.. some were on my laptop (my primary machine) some were on our file server, where I stashed them because my machine was running out of space, and some were on my husband’s 2nd drive in his desktop, again, where i stashed because i was running out of space. BTW.. I had to delete a bunch of stuff in order to HAVE the space to move back to my laptop to work on… hope none of it was important!

Space is a big issue in our house. Grrr. So I have my eye on this 500 gig Western Digital “my book” which will solve ALL my problems for only $240 (at costco. the warehouse, not the website). Drool. I covet your bytes. And your bits.

The only problem is now James has this fancy mac laptop and he’s digging the Aperture photo software and wants to use THAT, and what the hell? how are we supposed to do this? AHHHHH?!!

So I think that separate flickr accounts will be in our future, with us just handling our own photos separately.

So, finally, I’m getting to the part where the title of this section actually stems from (it’s been so long, let me remind you, it’s “the things you learn”…) If only I had learned this lesson EARLIER… like in february of last year…

Perhaps you can take heed from my observations. I’ve now spent a good 6-8 hours going through old photos, and at the time, I must have thought it was CUTE to take pictures of dirty kids faces, now I just wish I could read through time with a wet warm soapy washcloth and WIPE OFF ALL THE SNOTTY SPAGHETTI-Y CAKE-Y DIRT-Y GROSSNESS BECAUSE IT’S SO NOT CUTE. IT’S JUST GROSS.

Practically all the photos of the kids look like this:

Do yourself a favor.

Wipe those kids’ faces. THEN break out the camera.

OK i’m done now. Happy monday.

-amy

more ZERO:

“Which story do you want to read?”
“Um. RICHARD SCARRY!”
“OK. That’s a very long one, so we can do 5 pages.”
“How about.. FOUR?!”
“Sure, we can do four. That’s less though.”
“Does four come after five?”
“No, four is before five.”
“That’s ok, we can still do four. Or, ZERO!” *holds up his hand in the shape of an O*
“I don’t think you want ZERO.. then we wouldn’t have a story time before bed!”
“Oh, ok, I changed my mind!”

‘nother cuteness. Someone at school has told him that he can “keep things in his heart.”

“Shall we have frosted mini wheats for breakfast?”
“YEAH!”
…
“Mommy, I keep these mini wheats in my heart, ALL DAY LONG.”
“Yeah? What else do you keep in your heart?”
….
“My SLIPPERS!”
*laugh*
“How about me and daddy and jocelyn?”
“Um, Yeah! You too! And all my kids. Except TJ.”
“Not TJ?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll put him in my heart after this day.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah. He can be in my heart tomorrow.”

Ethan 2007:

Ethan 2002
Jocelyn 2006	Jocelyn 2005

Jocelyn all dressed up with her “WISHER!” (wand):

Daddy being dressed up:

Ethan with his marble run:

and geotrax trains:

general christmas merriment:

full set here!

hi there 2007! buh-bye 2006.

i look back on the old year as a good one. personally, i took a lot of really good healthy steps.

i definitely have some demons that i battle from time to time. it’s hard to even explain what gets me down. when i’m in an ok place, i don’t mind james disapearing downstairs to play World of Warcraft. Not even a whit. However, when I’m not, I want to throw his computer and that game into a big long pit with big firey spikes sticking up all menacing at the bottom. I want to gouge out his eyes with shrimp forks for leaving my side, but then when he does stay with me, i glower and pout and make life miserable.

When I’m in a funk, it is because I don’t like who I am, or how I am perceived (or rather, how I imagine others are perceiving me) or that these titles that are tagged on to me don’t feel at all like who i am.. (mother.. wife.. woman, working mom, responsible adult..). The things that I love and hold most dear are the very things that turn into shackles that bite into my skin as I rail against them. Somehow these things are the things, the “reasons” that I am unhappy. Somehow in my head things like having children living in surburbia equates to me being a boring surbuban house frau, or it equates to me being weird and strange and different from my neighborhood friends who seem to have it together, more together than I, which in turn makes me feel like a cat wearing a dog costume in a world with no cats.

I realize I’m rambling. I realize I’m making no sense. And it really makes no sense when I get all in a funk, and try to explain to my husband who just wants to do something, ANYTHING, to help me feel better. And I just can’t put it into words, that feeling of inadequacy, the sinking pit of dhoom that won’t give me up.

I’m rambling because I just have such a hard time expressing the dark places my brain sometimes puts me in, especially when I haven’t been there for a while, which I’m glad to say, I haven’t.

Why haven’t I? This is what I’m reflecting on. I think it’s because of something that I always knew I was supposed to do. Everyone knows that you have to take time for yourself. We’ve all read it and been preached at about it, but do you actually DO it? New parents especially are always told that you have to take some time for yourself, PLAN OUT time to spend together as a couple, blah blah blah. New moms, be sure to treat yourself to a nice luxorious bubble bath, take care of yourself, blah blah blah. I think the big steps I’ve taken in the latter half of this year have been taking care of myself. My inner self.

I love reading crafty blogs and seeing the creative awesomeness that comes out of these bloggers heads. I’ve recently disregarded any self deprecation and have started doing it myself to the extent that I have even decided to cater to this hobby a bit and set up my own table where my sewing machine and supplies live. I didn’t worry about the cost (which was dumb, because ikea is cheap) and the weirdness of making my front room into a craft room (it didn’t have anything in there anyway, so hello! good use of space!) and just went with it so that I could have some space to work when the mood struck and not have to be constantly moving my shit on and off the kitchen table. It feels good to “own” this. I may still be a sucky beginner, but I LIKE to sew and make things. I think I never really liked the thought of what this hobby would do to other people’s perceptions of me. Which is pretty stupid, because I LOVE and ADMIRE the crafty people I come across. It was just some part of me denying that I could/should do it.

I wanted to become a better photographer and kind of strong-armed james into getting a new camera. I have tried to carry it with me as much as possible and taken a photo safari class specific to my camera and while I wouldn’t say i’m fantastic, I am happy exploring this side of my artistic self as well.

This one is kind of dumb, but I’ve given up any weird notions I had about my hair and am back to using it as an ever-changing palette that I can alter as I want and use to show the world that I may be a suburban mom, but I’m not afraid to mix things up a bit (more on my further attempts at blonde-ness later). I’m no longer wondering or caring what others will think. It’s hair for heaven’s sake. it grows back.

I really didn’t care and just up and WENT to an indigo girls concert by myself.

I’ve had so much fun planting and growing things in my garden, despite my lack of knowledge or experience.

It’s like I’ve been lost. It’s like I had forgotten things that I loved, or the old things I loved didn’t have any appeal for me and nothing had taken it’s place and it left me all empty and hollow inside. I had some online addictions for many many years (ahem. met james online, so it was good for something, thanks) but after i left them behind, i never replaced them with anything else.

Honestly, now that you’ve read this, it makes me sound like the pre-Amy was a martyr mom who catered to everyone else’s whims and wants, and this just IS NOT true. Anyone who knows me can say that I am a fairly outspoken gal who does what she wants and has no qualms with taking time for herself. What I am trying to point out is that I didn’t really know want I wanted, I didn’t really feel as if I had a real purpose, just FOR ME. I was always looking at the things other people loved to do and thought, “how cool for them,” but really had nothing for myself. I think I really did lose a part of myself in becoming a mom, just being home with other small people who need your constant care and supervision can do that to a person, and in the last 4-6 months, I think I’ve found myself again.

And so for 2007, I resolve to carry on. Now that I’ve found her (ahem. I found myself, that’s who the “her” is, stay with me!), I’m not letting her go. More creativity in 2007, and hopefully in more ways that I wish I had the time and nerve to do, like:

finding a choir or chorale to sing with/in (a vocal jazz ensemble would be soooooooooo awesome)
jazz piano lessons (this might fall under “too much effort required” as i’d have to practice and shit)
sewing classes
knitting classes and groups
more crocheting
painting would be fun. i used to paint quite a bit
learning more about my camera/photography
more crafty stuff with my kids
more READING READING READING
maybe finally do the Artists’ Way for real (shut up linda! I KNOW I KNOW!)

I used to read all the time. I used to carry a book with me everywhere and read while I was walking. when I was little, i would read from my bed by the light of the hall (hello ruined eyesight) until my mom turned it off, and then i’d read by a flashlight under the covers. i definitely need to get reading back into my life. how in the crap it ever left my life (oh yeah, babies. that’s not true though. i got a lot of reading done during nursing time) i’m not sure, but it’s time to bring it back.

so there you go. i’ve been mulling all of this over for the past month or so, and it’s good to get it out there. What about you? Any new years resolutions? What do you do that is just for YOU?

happy new year to you, and may you take good care of your inner self 🙂

-amy

… is now up.

I am trying not to be wishy washy. i am NOT pondering about taking it down. i spent a lot of time on this sucker (back in november) and dammit, it’s staying up.

SO THERE.

Plus, it’s such a relief to get that december banner down. I don’t know about you, but it’s way too depressing to see christmasy stuff/decorations after the holiday is over. Last year the tree came down the day after. This year, Christmas was on monday, and my mom and I waited until wednesday to take down the tree. Which was TOO LONG.

Buh-bye december banner! hello new year!

the idea of taking a blogging holiday sounds much better BEFORE the holiday than afterward, when you’re trying to think of all the stuff you were going to blog about.

and then (at least, if you’re me) you suffer from the ‘i have to tell everything in the PAST before i can tell anything about the PRESENT’ and then you just don’t post because who has that kind of time? to recap all that has happened? and then days go by and your blog sits there all cobwebby and sad.

So to keep THAT from happening (much longer), we’ll do a very quick recap. in a very non-linear way.

1. having grandparents around is a hoot. jocelyn is still at the age to be very excited and aimable about every little thing. Ethan however, is getting older, and is not particularly amenable to putting on a show of excitement/emotions for every little thing. I needed to point this out to my mom once, who understood immediately and demands/disappointment on not seeing Ethan hop up and down about something were put to rest. I think that this is one of the big steps from a toddler to a child. He has become more reserved. This makes him less baby-cute, but very sweet in that, ‘this is a little man we see before us’ sort of way. And it makes those tiems when he does show the little-kid-excitement even more exciting

2. jocelyn has still got the baby-cute thing rockin’ big time. the things she says and observes are hilarious, and always more so when heard in that still baby-esque voice. She picks up the xbox controller and says, “I want to GO A CAR!!” and it just slays the room. She is a master of theatrics and has little moans and whimpers that she strolls out whenever she feels she has been put upon. My older sister Ellen used to always call her second daughter Rachel, “AJ” — which stood for Amy Jr. She claims I am a very dramatic, theatrical person (who MOI???), and Rachel did everything in a big “oh, WOE is ME!” sort of dramatic way, thus the nickname. Well, NOW I know what Ellen was talking about, as Jocelyn is proving to be quite the AJ.

3. She is also quite the musical child. I know Ethan had little songs he sang too, but I don’t think he did it quite like Jocelyn. She is constantly humming or singing. The other day at naptime, I heard her over the monitor singing from her crib “Frosty the Snowman” over and over again, with all the correct words (even some I had been getting wrong for years). She will pick words from whatever she’s thinking or doing and put them to music she’s heard. The melody heard most often is Dvorak’s Symphony No 9 “From The New World” which was featured on an episode of Little Einsteins. In the episode, a ring from Saturn’s moon came off, and the Little Einsteins returned it in their rocket. (I recommend this show for the excellent music alone.) Jocelyn will sing, “Ring is going home..” or whatever else comes into her mind, whether it’s “Dolly’s haaaaas a biiiiiiib..” or “Daddy’s hair, daddy’s hair daaaaaaaaddy’s hair..”

What really astounds me is how quickly she’ll pick up a melody and repeat it. I’ve been humming “In the lovely afternoon” from Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” recently – just a few bars really, not even a full verse – and she’s already singing and humming away at it perfectly. Ethan loves music, but is fairly tone deaf (which doesn’t stop him from singing, thank goodness). It’s still a bit early to tell for Jocelyn, but she can carry a tune fairly well. I’d love to have a little singer in the family. I hope we can foster lots of love for music always in our household.

4. Speaking of singing… my mother is a fantabulous pianist. It was quite a joy to have her in the house. Whenever we’re together she plays and I sing. Sometimes it’s a frustrating experience. I was a voice major in college, and haven’t done anything vocal since. Most of the time, it shows. This time however, I have to say, I’ve still got it baby 🙂

When I was growing up, hearing my mom play was a constant in my life. She has always taught piano, as long as I can remember. She is always playing for church or other activities, accompanying others, singers, violinists, flutists, what-have-you. She went back to school when I was in middle school/junior high and for years, listening to her practice was how I fell asleep every night. She was always busy during the day, so the evening became her practice time. Some piano pieces are always “hers” in a way, because I’ve heard her play them so often. Names and composers always escape me, but me or my brother can always say, “Play the loud, crashy one mom,” and she knows what we mean. Hearing my mother play is probably the thing I miss most, living so far away from them.

5. Christmas eve presents of jammies will probably not become a tradition in our family, as they were fairly negatively received by Ethan this year. I should have known better, actually. I wrapped them up, and the kids opened them. Jocelyn liked hers fine, but Ethan was obviously expecting some of the Christmassy toys he’d been waiting for all this time, and expressed his displeasure and refused to wear them to bed. Oh well. Maybe if I don’t wrap them, or just call them jammies. “Time to open your christmas jammies!” — that might work. we’ll see.

6. The kid presents were a big hit. The only thing Ethan kept asking for anytime anyone asked him what he wanted was a “Toy Factory.” Some puzzling over this made us realize that he wanted a “factory” that was a toy. not a factory that produces toys. He has a “factory” on his geotrax train, so we supposed that that was what he wanted. A geotrax barrel loader was obtained, along with some expansion packs that had HILLS (GLORIOUS HILLS!) and Ethan was a happy camper.

Jocelyn received a trunk of dress up clothes, and a baby basinette and high chair. Both have had quite the workout, but the dress-up clothes have been slightly favored. They had other presents also, but these ones were the big santa presents.

7. I gave my dad and James a “photo safari.” Reviews were good, though not gushing. I suspect my father already knew anything that was offered in way of instruction, but still the opportunity to go into DC and shoot photos is still nice. James learned some stuff about composition, and you can check out the photos he took in the flickr set. I generally hog the camera, and he enjoyed spending some quality time with it. We may have to get him his own flickr account to keep our stuff separate, or maybe we’ll keep it all together.. not sure what we want to do. Guess we’ll see.

8. the lens is fantastic….. and my dad is/was right. we need a flash now. badly. and a camera case 🙂 this MOMENT however, while I am very happy with the lens, I’m kind of enthralled by my second christmas present.

9. i had a little second christmas which i’ll talk about in a later post… involving a new SEWING machine, yay for me! it’s a very nice one too.

10. The week was just so nice and pleasant. The pace always move a bit faster when my mom visits, as she is very much a DO-ER. Always up, always doing, always wanting to GO GO GO, OUT OUT OUT. Me, i’m more of a home-body and would be perfectly content to stay home. There were times I had to call a stop to all the DOING, and there were also times when she had to grab me by the arm and haul me off to go DO, and it was all good and fun. The kids loved seeing their grandparents, and I hope we can have them for another Christmas in the future. Maybe sometime in 2007 we can have a family reunion, as I’d love them to see their cousins as well. A definite downside to living on the east coast is being so far from my family, and their cousins, a few of whom are right around their age.

I think that’s enough of an update for now. I’ll try to get more later.. and I’ll REALLY try to get some photos up as well. I have about a billion blogs to try to catch up on as well, so we shall see!

happy holidays and merry new year to everyone!