I noticed the first peek of pink last week on my way to the grocery store. There in the bushes in the median on Washington Avenue – azaleas in bloom. I did a double-take. I’m always excited to see them, because spring is my favorite time in Savannah. Soon the fountains will be green for St. Patrick’s Day, and the weather is already starting to warm (albeit temporarily). Temps were in the upper 70s today with a wonderful breeze, and I snapped this photo as we all headed to the neighborhood playground to enjoy the weather.
The buds are just forming and considering opening up to drink in all that sunshine. In just a couple of weeks, that same stretch of sidewalk will look like this photo I took last March.
Bright, cheerful flowers as far as you can see. By the time we get back from Cuba, I bet the flowers will really be popping out.
Cuba… now that’s another blog post or two. Tomorrow, perhaps? Right now it’s time for bed.
That “Rehab” song by Amy Winehouse is quite catchy, and Lee and I often get the chorus stuck in our heads. Especially the part that goes, “They tried to make me go to rehab/ I said ‘no, no, no.'”
Well, “no” just happens to be one of Camille’s new favorite words. Sometimes she really means it, but sometimes she’ll just walk around chanting, “No. No. No. No,” because it’s just fun.
Therefore, Miss Camille likes the Amy Winehouse song and its chorus of “no”s. I realize the subject matter isn’t appropriate for a baby, so we change it up a bit about trying to make her go to baby school or something, and she likes to chime in.
In honor of Amy Winehouse’s Grammy win, Camille performed for the camera tonight. She’s too cute. I could eat her up.
Camille’s Grammy Tribute from Ginger on Vimeo.
Tomorrow, Camille and I will once again suit up and join in with a bunch of other moms and dads for our StarBabies swim class at the Aquatic Center. When the classes began in January, I was SUPER excited. Camille enjoyed playing in the pool last year, and if I could grow gills and fins I think that would be fine because I really like water.
At first, the class was great. She liked splashing and chasing her pool toy. Each week they get to pick out a little inflatable toy, and we toss it in the pool and practice kicking and paddling to get to it. Here she is, heading toward her little green turtle in the bottom right corner of the picture.
She also likes being tossed into the air. Even though the water splashes her face, she doesn’t seem to mind and I usually get a big smile.
But she is most certainly and unequivocally not interested in putting her head under water. If I remember correctly, we tried it for the first time during our second class, and she came up crying and mad. I chalked it up to the shock of a new experience, and determined we’d try it again. After her third dunking, it was clear she was NOT a fan.
Since then, every class has a game or a lesson that involves going under water, and Camille has not gotten over her aversion to it. In fact, this was the last picture her Daddy took of our lesson last week, because it was right before she went under water. There were no more smiles after that.
A couple of times the instructor has taken her under water, I guess hoping she’d have a different reaction with someone else. But each time she comes up red-faced and crying. Then she wraps her arms around my neck and holds on for dear life.
I don’t blame her, because I’m sure it’s a strange sensation. And this is, after all, the baby who HATES to have her hair washed. But what seems odd to me is that she is the only baby in our class who doesn’t like going under water. Some of them fussed at first, or they may not like certain games, but all of them are somewhat comfortable with getting dunked. Some are as young as 8 months, and others are almost 3 years old.
So I’ve been doing some soul searching and trying to decide the right thing to do when we go to class tomorrow. Do I keep trying to take her under and help her overcome her fears? Or do I give up on that and just play above water? I don’t want to push too hard and end up having her hate pools, but I also want to encourage her to swim. And I get the feeling the instructor thinks we’re both kind of wimpy about it.
Maybe I’ll wait until the end of class and then give it another try. That way I won’t have ruined the entire class if she still doesn’t like it. I just need to remember not to project my own desires on her by pushing her to do something she’s obviously not enjoying. If she doesn’t ever like swimming, of course that’s ok. But I’ve talked to other moms at work who said their kids didn’t like going under water at Camille’s age, but as they got older they loved the pool. That’s my hope anyway!
I think it’s great that Boards of Election are making it even easier for people to vote by opening certain polls for early voting. No lines, no tight schedules – you have a couple of weeks to find time to cast your ballot.
But I can’t help myself – I just like voting on election day. I enjoy feeling like part of something big. I like wearing my “I’m a Georgia Voter” sticker all day long. I think early voting is a great idea, but I’m still drawn to the experience of Super Tuesday.
However, I didn’t get to wear my sticker all day, because someone wanted to wear it too.
Or, maybe it’s her very own sticker. Maybe she committed voter fraud. If so, I have a feeling there was one vote for a write-in candidate named Elmo.
…you get really excited about a new vacuum cleaner. Our old one recently died on us just moments before a house showing. It had been performing more and more poorly, then finally just quick picking up any of the dustbunnies on our floor. It actually seemed to be shooting dust back into the room instead.
Since we had to buy a new vacuum, we decided we might as well go for gold (and for broke). For years we’ve been hearing rave reviews from friends and the internet about Dyson vacuum cleaners. They’re supposed to be great vacuums, requiring little maintenance, and especially good at sucking up animal hair – which we have in large quantities floating around our house.
We bought a refurbished model, which made me a little nervous, but we saved so much money that I felt it was worth a shot. So far, we’ve been very pleased. When we took it out of the box, it felt a little like a birthday party – how sad is that! But let’s be honest. I spend a fair amount of time vacuuming, and I really want a cleaner home for all of us, so this little device will hopefully improve my life.
Just like the commercials claim, so far it has great suction. My other favorite features are the bagless canister that is easy to empty, the telescoping attachment that allows me to vacuum the stairs without dragging the vacuum cleaner behind me, and the really long cord which means I can vacuum the whole downstairs without changing outlets. Go Dyson!
WSAV did a story in advance of the BlogSavannah UnConference last week, and little ol’ Gummibunny got a mention!
If you click to watch the video, screen shots of the blog are in the story, complete with pics of a most adorable 18-month-old.
My little baby is turning into a little girly-girl. How did this happen?
Until recently, we’ve struggled to keep a bow in her ever-longer hair, which instead fell into her eyes like a little blond sheepdog. She didn’t hate the bows, but she was curious about them and preferred to have them in her hands where she could inspect them. She obediently wore shoes in public, but we wanted her to go shoeless in the house, and she didn’t show a preference either way.
But within the past week or so, those two things seem to have changed. She has now decided that bows are more than ok – they are awesome. Especially her little felt owl bow. When she sees it lying on her dresser, she’ll point and ask, “Owl? Owl? Owl? Hair? Hair?” She sits very still while we put the bow in, looks in the mirror to see how cute it is, and for the most part leaves it alone. I need to get a picture of it. Today, we put this pink felt flower in her hair (ordered along with the owl from the store Maya Papaya on etsy.com) to go to church, and she kept it in the whole time.
She also now likes shoes, and apparently prefers girly-girl shoes. We knew she was outgrowing her first pair of stride rites and were planning to get her some more, but in the meantime we picked up this cheaper Target pair as back-up shoes.
In the store, she seemed quite taken with the little flowers on the shoes. The next day when she came home from baby school and I took them off, thinking her little feet deserved a rest, she cried. I didn’t make the connection at first, until she picked them up and tried to hand them back to me, wailing, “Shoos! Shoos!” I put them back on, and she happily scampered off to play with her toys.
That was even more reason to get her a good pair of new shoes – because if she wants to wear them more often, they need to be sturdy and well made for growing feet.
Around the house, we try to get her to wear these:
They’re basically leather house slippers (the Target version of the much more expensive Robeez brand), and she seems to like them. Whenever we put them on, we get an approving “Oof! Oof!” They’re not constraining so I don’t worry about them affecting her foot development, and they keep her tootsies warmer and help her not slide on the hardwoods.
These are her first stride rites – the ones she has outgrown:
I had my concerns when I first bought these shoes. They were so expensive, and I wasn’t sure any pair of baby shoes could be worth fifty bucks. But she has worn them to school nearly every day, played on the playground, run, climbed, crawled, etc., and they’ve held up. You can see how worn the leather is, how the sole is just beginning to shred at the toe, and I’m fairly certain more cheaply made shoes would’ve been in the trash can a long time ago.
So, I’m now a believer in spending a bit more for shoes since childhood is kind of rough on them. Yesterday, we got her a new pair of kicks from stride rite, and so far, she seems to like them.
She doesn’t pine for them like her flower shoes, but maybe there is enough pink trim to satisfy this little girly girl.
The mommy blogging session of the BlogSavannah UnConference was very interesting. While all the women in the room shared two things in common – we have kids, and we write about parenting – there were also a lot of differences in our styles, motivations, and experiences with blogging.
One of the distinctions that stuck out to me the most was about allowing comments on blogs. I’m pretty sure I was the only one in the room whose blog does not allow them, and some of the other bloggers felt comments were really the heart and soul of their blogs.
When I first began blogging, I was still working as a reporter and every bit of my professional writing was subject to editing, critique and comment. I wanted my blog to be a place where I would write for myself and not invite feedback for once. And I’ve enjoyed that. I’m afraid I might further edit my own writing if I know people can comment (and criticize) at will. And if my friends and family members really want to comment on something I’ve written, they call me or email me.
But there have been a few times when I wanted the input of a wider audience of moms and dads out there. Like a few days ago, when our pediatrician said Camille really needed to get a little more sleep, and I was hunting for advice about helping her sleep later in the morning. If my site had comments, I could’ve posed the question to see if anyone responded.
So, I may choose a compromise. I don’t think I want to allow comments on every post. I don’t necessarily want people to weigh in on my monthly Letters to Camille, etc. But it would be nice to get some feedback from other parents from time to time. I’ll talk to my favorite, most handsome and loving web designer and see if we can make the change…
I’ve been blogging for more than 5 years now, and until recently, hadn’t really thought too much about its role in my life. I never took it very seriously in the beginning – it was just a fun way to write about the minutia of life, share it with my friends, or just blow off steam. And I’ve always enjoyed reading my friend’s blogs because it helps me feel connected. Back when Lee used to blog, I loved reading his posts even though we lived in the same house. I just found it very interesting to see what he chose to write about and how he presented an experience we both shared.
When Camille was born, I unintentionally entered a new blogosphere and became a “mommy blogger.” Rarely do I post something that has nothing to do with her or parenting, but I’m not apologetic. There just aren’t many things more noteworthy to me than watching my child grow.
Several weeks ago, I was invited to present at the BlogSavannah Un-Conference, a sort of local and informal meetup of folks who like to blog. I’m co-presenting with April Groves in a session about working mommy bloggers.
At first, I wasn’t sure what we all might be able to talk about that would fill an hour. I still blog mostly for fun, although I now also see it as a way to digitally scrapbook Camille’s childhood, and so I guess I take it more seriously. But what is there to say about mommy blogging? “She grows. I write about it. That’s it.”
Then I started thinking about it more, and read a really neat article about mommy blogging in Wondertime magazine. And now I’m convinced there are a lot of things to discuss. Like, what’s bloggable, and what’s not? There are plenty of things that have happened that I haven’t posted for one reason or another. After all, our children are people too, and do they deserve some privacy? And while moms can be a caring, supportive bunch, they can also be judgmental. I’ve kept several of my bad mommy moments to myself for fear of judgment. To allow comments, or not to allow comments? And why do we do it? After working all day, taking care of a child, a family, and a home all evening, why do we use those few minutes of “me” time to talk about all the things we just did? Or read blogs written by strangers about what they just did? I crave reading posts from other moms, to hear about the funny stuff their kids are doing, or the awful thing that happened at school, or the embarrassing thing the toddler said to the cashier at the store, about how they dealt with a non-napper, or how they’re exhilarated or frustrated or unsure or whatever.
I guess I do it for 2 reasons. I do it because I know every day with Camille is a gift, and blogging is a way to hang on to some of our experiences. I also do it for the same reason I started blogging to begin with – to feel connected. But it’s an even stronger connection now. While our children are very different, I think most parents share many common issues, and it’s nice to know we’re not alone in the good experiences and the not-so-great.
I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s UnConference. Should be interesting to see if anyone else thinks this mommy blogging thing is fun too.
Now that Lee has his own office space downtown, we’ve transformed the portion of our living room that used to house his home office into a playroom for Camille – and I love it! The setup is nice because the play area is behind our couch, and as you walk in the room you can see the tops of toys peeking out, but it’s not completely in your face. So once she goes to bed, we can sit on the couch, watch TV and be grown ups without the toys all around us.
One of the first things we did to turn the area into her playroom was put plastic foam mats down. We bought these in a pack at Sam’s for 20 bucks! They’re great because they provide some cushion from the cold hardwoods, and they’re easy to wipe clean. They also help define her play area.
We packed up about half of her toys and put them away. We’ll bring them out soon and pack some of these up, just to keep things fresh and to reduce the visible clutter. Our latest and possibly greatest addition to the play area was the piece of furniture we got last weekend at Ikea. We’d been looking for a place to store her smaller toys and books. Previously they’d been tossed into her pack-n-play which meant she couldn’t retrieve them on her own, or into cardboard diaper boxes which were less than classy.
This piece of furniture works well because it has a bunch of little cubbies that can be used for books, toys, blankets, diapers, whatever we want to cram in there. And I was going to buy baskets for her small toys, but we already had these buckets and they actually work perfectly. She takes all the toys out and uses the buckets as toys too. Because it’s real wood, I hope it’ll stand up to all the playing, and if we ever don’t need it for toys, I think it’s a pretty piece of furniture for anywhere in the house. And it’s just the right height to fit behind our sofa and a perfect place to put our lamps. From the other side of the room, it just looks like a sofa table, not a kid toy box. Camille seems to really like it, because her toys are so accessible now. Yay for Ikea, and yay for us!
