Friday, April 27, 2007

Where's the boy?

M: Where’s my boy?
Me: What boy? There isn’t a boy here right now.
M: Yes there is.
Me: There is? Who’s the boy?
M: Aww, Mom! It’s daddy!
Me: You silly girl. Daddy is your boy? Daddy’s at work. He’ll be home in the morning.

Friday, April 20, 2007

On Parenthood

I am hormonal, of late. But this really touched me. I think it is so true, agreed with every little thing she said, and it really made me stop and think.....

From Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author:

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but indisbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Threepeople who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraidof disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tellvulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doorsclosed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zipup their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves.Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernibleexcept through the unreliable haze of the past.Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for menow. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhoodeducation, have all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon andWhere the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. ButI suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women onthe playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what theytaught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, thenbecomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize thatit is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child respondswell to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, hissibling at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed onhis belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because ofresearch on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually youmust learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderfulbooks on child development, in which he describes three differentsorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was theresomething wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrongwith his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physicallychallenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China . Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakeswere made. T hey have all been enshrined in the, "Remember-When- Mom-Did Hall of Fame." The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. Thetimes I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover.The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barrelingout of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get wrong?". (She insisted I include that.)The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker andthen drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsonsfor the first two seasons. What was I thinking?But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make whiledoing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs.There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on aquilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing:dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a littlemore and the getting it done a little less.Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me andwhat was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thoughtsomeday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because theydemanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. Thebooks said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and Iwas sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done morethan anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the booksnever told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

First Friends


My newest layout! I scrapped this photo back in the beginning of my obsession, but thought it was time to do it again because I like it so much. This is June 2005, camping at Paulina.... and this is Rylee and Morgan holding Krysta's hands as she's learning to walk, and this shot was taken milliseconds before she took a tumble. I love it. Morgan's first friends. Her first girlfriends. Super cute!
Details:
chipboard title
Hambly screenprint frame over the photo (white) and then a green rubon fluorish over the screenprint
the pink flowers were made with a flower dingbat that was downloaded from the internet and printed on the backside of my paper
the green scalloped "grass" is the reverse of the floral patterned paper that I trimmed off the top
:)


Tuesday, April 10, 2007

She Sleeps

I have a zillion pictures to load, but it's more difficult now without my Hello program... so I'll deal with that pain later. For now, a new layout. I have been having a long couple of weeks, and haven't had any scrap mojo, but I needed to get something done for my DT at Scrappin' Trends, so I did a layout using some Daisy Buckets paper yesterday. This is my sweet Morgan taking a snooze in early 2004. Love this pic! This is hybrid... a mixture of digital and traditional scrapbooking, because I desaturated my photo and added the word "hush" to the lower right. I am taking baby steps. I still do not understand my photo editing program and seriously need to take a class. I'd love to learn digital scrapbooking as well, just to have more knowledge, but don't know anything about that either. I think I'll wait until I can upgrade to PSE5.0




In other scrapbooking news.... one of my CHA contacts worked out, and I am honored to work for my first manufacturer! It's www.upsydaisydesigns.com - Amanda emailed me last week and asked me to be on her team! I am very excited about that.

I also got an email from www.inspiremecardkits.com asking me to be on their team too! So last week was a great week for scrappy news! I have wanted to get into making cards, so this works out great! Plus, May is my first month on the DT, and they are working with Cosmo Cricket, which is one of my all-time favorite manufacturers!

Lastly... I was ALSO asked to be a guest Design Team member at my favorite scrap site... www.scrappersbliss.com - You'll see my work in their DT gallery in May. I should be getting my box of scrappy goodness to play with any day now. I love the girls and this site so I look forward to playing with them.


Monday, April 02, 2007

Birthday Girl


My sweet birthday girl. She turned one and now she looks like a little old lady. I can't believe how swiftly the time went by... I can't wait to see what the future might bring. I can't wait to see how Morgan and Payton interact as Payton gets more mobile. In the past couple of days she's decided to try walking first before she does a crawl, and gets quite frustrated if she doesn't make it to her destination before falling down, which is quite cute, because she gets quite dramatic, flopping down on the floor face down, arms stretched out above her head... too cute.


We've been working on "what does a puppy say? woof woof." She does grunt twice every once in a while, so she's getting it. Too funny.


I thought she was our itty bitty miss, but she's in the 90th percentile for her height. She's in the 65th for her weight, so I guess she is our tiny girl, becuase Morgan was always in the high percentages. I don't remember the exact numbers.... that info is still in the car. Oops!


Oh.... here's her birthday invites. They will now be birthday announcements, as Mama did not get her act together and get them finished in time. They are super cute, though! Be looking for them in your mailbox soon. Well.... maybe not 'soon' .... but before too long!




Sunday, April 01, 2007










My little stinker does this scrunchy nose face all the time where she breathes in and out really fast through her nose. I'm so glad to catch some of those silly faces on film. She's such a little jester sometimes!