Trickery

Very pleased with myself today. I've been getting terrible pictures of Eli lately because he seems to contort his face in the most awkward way possible just as I click the shutter. Today I told him to pretend he was an angel, and lo and behold I got this:



I also figured out that by taking along my little 50mm lens I could eliminate a couple of pounds out of the diaper bag and still get great photos.

Small ideas lead to a happy mom.

the ultimate in naval gazing

Today's theme over at Picture This is Mama, which offers the perfect opportunity to focus on myself for a frame or two. As I read Tracey's description, I thought to myself, "What defines me as a mama?" Not a difficult question, it turns out. It's my belly, which has become somewhat of a roadmap of my life. My belly button is a marker of my distant past, my connection with my own mama; my less-distant past represented by the now mostly-closed piercing just above it. My slightly stretched violet tattoo is a touchstone, a connection with a different time in my life, when I only dreamed of being a mama myself and thought I'd be young forever. And, of course, in the past this belly was also a home, a cocoon for my Eli. In the present it is rounder, softer than it used to be, but those newer qualities are hard-earned and cherished. And then there's the future, when it may again - someday - be a place for a bunch of tiny cells to stake a claim at the core of my heart, the center of my universe. Whether that happens or not, my belly is what it is because I am who I am. And who I am is a mama.

Walk

Ah, the joys of having the teeniest following in cyberspace. I can walk away for three weeks without worrying anyone. Incidentally, walk is this week's theme over at Picture This, and that happens to be something we do often around here.

I can't tell you how many shots I have of Eli from this perspective. What is it about seeing your little one walking away into the distance that's so compelling? Maybe it's the pride in his independence; maybe it's the rare chance to see him from afar; maybe it's one of the few ways he'll actually let me take his picture. Whatever it is, when I have my camera on hand, I can't help myself.

Freedom

Freedom is going in circles in the belly of a giant yellow and purple bear. Freedom is seeing your parents whiz by at every rotation. Freedom is going on a carnival ride by yourself. Freedom is also a little scary. And freedom is this week's Theme Thursday.

(Incidentally, freedom was not quite this washed out in the original shot, but I can't seem to fix it. My boy is not as green as he looks!)

Three

This week's theme is THREE. In a family of three, where so much of my thinking is focused on just how big this family should be, it's not that difficult to find something that fits the bill. I like this one because it's us, but not. And we are three.

Exposure

Theme Thursday brings us to a conversation about exposure. There are so many fun ways to interpret this one, and I decided to go with practical and maybe even a little depressing. It's on my mind, though: Expsoure to BPA in all of Eli's plastic sippy cups. Some of my favorites stopped to pose for that photo on their way to the recycling bin.

I try not to be an alarmist about things like this but I think I've become hyper-sensitive, with all the lead paint recalls, etc. And I realized... some days his milk, juice or water sits in the same cup for 12 hours. If there's the potential for leaching, it's likely going on in our house, especially because I have been known to spend 15 minutes rearranging the dishwasher just to get an extra dish in there. So yeah, those cups are getting washed in there.

So today I gathered up all his pretty translucent cups (which I love, by the way - I have a thing for pretty plastic items) and I spent a good amount of time researching and ordering alternatives. I found one blog with a particularly useful review and ultimately got him one of these:



and one of these:


Hopefully, that will be the end of his exposure to bad, bad things. Until the next recall, anyway.

Summer Pretty

Today's theme is Pretty, so I thought I'd share what I think is my prettiest photo from the summer.
You can decide for yourselves whether I'm calling those strawberries the pretty thing, or whether I'm talking about that giant smile. :)

Fading away

It's Theme Thursday today, and I couldn't resist sharing this FADED picture that I took of myself for a photo class last spring. Not a great shot composition-wise but it fits the theme, I think. We were learning about exposure and, sheesh, do you think I could have perhaps cleaned up the living room? Maybe next time.

Fly

It's Theme Thursday again! Goodness, where do the weeks go?

The theme this week is FLY, and you know what I love? How many opportunities there are in a child's world to take a picture of flight. I think that's how it should be.

We love bubbles around here. So here are some of our more recent bubbly friends, in flight.

The Key to Life

I'm feeling very literal today. It's Theme Thursday, and the theme is Key. So I present you with... my keys! Seems kind of obvious, I know, but as I was taking the picture I realized how much this group of metal and plastic is a literal key to my life. For example, ignoring the ridiculous number of plastic membership cards, this is the emptiest my key chain has been since high school. I'm used to having keys to an office building, keys to an office in that building, keys to friends' houses (that I would actually use to go over and hang out - imagine the luxury of that), all in addition to the standards: car and home. Right now I have my car key, my house key, and - just for good measure - a key to my sister's house. It took me a while to get used to an emptier key chain, as if a larger number of keys somehow indicates a more useful life. I prefer to think of these as simpler times.

Two things I love about my keys: First, that the big clunky one says VW. I drive a station wagon that we bought before there was Eli, before we even left California to head east and start this family. I love my wagon. But I especially love that it's a VW because in my single California days I drove old bugs. I had a white '66 - nicknamed Pearl - for a few months that was stolen off the streets of San Francisco. (Boo.) I replaced it with a '65 in seafoam green that needed a ton of work, most of which I did myself, again on the streets of San Francisco. There I was, weekend after weekend, at the intersection of Polk and Filbert, re-upholstering the seats or sanding out the rust or replacing the bumpers. One of my favorite memories of that time is when a woman walked past, said hello, and then came back about 20 minutes later with a 12 year old girl trailing right behind. She said to me, "I brought my niece back because I wanted her to see all the things that women can do." I felt pretty good about that.

And then I drove that freshly painted car - christened Opal - down to LA to start graduate school and wouldn't you know it, three days later someone stole that one. (Sigh.) I replaced it with a UPS brown '67 (obviously not the original color, which was beige). That poor car never got new bumpers, never got a new paint job, never got a name. It just got replaced with something else when I could afford it. I think it was a combination of the thefts breaking my spirit and the LA freeways making me wish for a steadier car. But I will forever hold a special place in my heart for VWs, and my station wagon and its key hints at that a little.

So there you have it. A key to my keys.

What a long, loud trip it's been

My poor kid. Torn between his love of trains and his discomfort with the very sound of them. This is a pretty typical visit to the train station for us, watching all the suburbanites take their daily trip into the city. And it just so happens that trip is this week's theme over at Tracey's Theme Thursday. Head over there for more takes on trip.

Fair, Not Fair

It's Theme Thursday again. The theme is "Fair" and I had to stretch pretty hard to find something that worked. We didn't visit any fairs this week, but we did suffer certain injustices. Specifically, my poor husband has diligently watered two small tomato plants every morning and night for the last few months. He had three tomatoes growing - until a few days ago, that is, when we noticed one missing. And then the next morning another. Animals - it doesn't matter what kind, but let's assume raccoon since that's what we tend to see around here - had taken the literal fruits of his labor. NOT FAIR.

BUT, there was one left. Not quite ready for picking, but close enough, and we couldn't risk losing it. He snatched it from the plant, ferried it inside, and we devoured it in three minutes flat.

Two for the scurrying nocturnal creature; one for us. FAIR ENOUGH.

love,love,drip

I love my kid - probably more than he loves water fountains, and that's saying something. This is my submission for this week's theme of "Drip."

The HEAT is on!

It's time for this week's photo theme, courtesy of Tracey. With a theme like "heat," you'd think it would be easy to come up with a great kid photo, but somehow I've got nothin'. I had to dig into the archives and pull out this picture from almost exactly one year ago.



My family has a long history in the Adirondacks and we try to make it back, as a group, every couple of years. Last year my niece spent a lot of time escaping the heat just like this. (So did I, for that matter.)

Spectacle!

It's Theme Thursday over at Tracey's and after a several week hiatus (following a lonely, solitary week of participation), I finally have something to share! The theme this week is spectacle, and that, on the surface, was hard for me. My life is not about spectacle. My family - in particular, my boy - is not about spectacle. Trying to cajole my quiet, somewhat introverted, never-one-to-make-a-spectacle-of-himself little one into doing something spectacular is like trying to squeeze milk out of a juice box. You'll get something, but it's not what you were going for. But, scratch the surface of the word "spectacle" and you find an "s" you can tack on, and voila! Spectacles!

One of my favorite things about this shot is being able to look over his shoulder to see a fuzzy image of one of my favorite baby photos of Eli. Something about the past being off in the distance, still recognizable, but not the focus. Something about my two-and-a-half year old being right there, front and (slightly off) center. Just how it should be.

Spin!

Well, I haven't done particularly well getting this blog up and rolling, have I? You know what happened? Right about the same time I started the blog I also discovered even more blogs that I just fell in love with. I already had a short list of women's blogs that impressed me beyond words but my recent finds really took it to a new level, not just in the quality of the writing (which is impeccable) but also in the topics these women address. Their words make the most mundane events poetic and the most tragic situations palpable. These are books I can't put down; these are blogs I can't live up to.

But the conclusion I've come to is that I don't need to. I admire these women and I drink in their words. My own words still need to be said. Sure, I won't think they're as eloquent and I'll probably never have Starbucks wanting to advertise on my blog, but I still need to say them, right? Today seemed like a good day to start. One blog where I've been lurking is Picture This, run by a very talented and wise photographer, Tracey Clark. She's just instituted Thursday Themes and I happened to have a shot I like for today's theme: SPIN!

So, in keeping with the theme I'm dusting off this blog and taking it for a little spin and I'm sharing the shot of Eli and David up top. Let's see how long we can keep this thing moving. :)