Mom Screwed Up

Ok. A lot of moms have regrets about their kids. I wish I had spent more time with them...I wish I had breastfed for longer... I wish I hadn't let my mother bully me into feeding solid foods yet... I wish I had read to the baby more...I wish I had made the baby sleep through the night, etc.

I have no such regrets. Other than the c-section which wasn't exactly anyones fault, I am happy.

I am breastfeeding. I am only one week shy of making it the entire six months. This is amazing and wonderful for me. I'm glad I didn't give up. I spend a good amount of time with her every day. I haven't rushed her off to daycare so someone else can raise her. I have taught her to read. I go for walks with her. I snuggle with her, etc.

But, lest you think I'm a perfect mama, I do screw up. She has been getting progressively cranky as the summer goes on, and I was having a hard time figuring it out. One day, I left her in her pajamas, and I discovered, that she was cold. So, I guess I was freezing my baby my letting her run naked in the summer. That is now fixed, and I am glad that the crankiness is over and that I can have a perfect baby again.

Daphne, where is the Light? Daphne, where is the fan?

There are a lot of changes going on here. I need to write more about them as I post photos because it isn't all about the photos.

I am taking lots of video, and maybe I will try to figure out how to do a video up here.

Here is the monumental news of the day, Daphne knows the words "fan" and "light"

I was in Jared's office with her today, and she was looking at the fan. I told her, "Daphne, that is a fan." After she looked away for a minute, I then got her attention and said, "Daphne, Daphne, where is the fan." She turned her head and looked directly at the fan.

Just to ensure it wasn't a fluke, I took her to the bedroom, turned on the light and said, "Daphne, where is the light." She turned her head and found the light.

I was excited as all heck because that was the first physical manifestation that she actually knew English words!!!!!

I have now repeated many times since then, and she's got a lot of praise. And, she wins a lot of points in my book for cuteness.

She wants me now, so that makes the end of the post!

Ban All Things Chinese?

Ok. So I like Chinese things as much as the next guy. I can't turn down a plate of Orange Chicken or broccoli and beef. I don't know that we have gone so far as to find toxic chemicals in our Chinese food, but this has just gone too far.

Jared and I are starting to become more conscious of things that are coming to the US from China because they seem to have different standards than we do. First it was the million toys that were recalled and now it is toxic rice and now toothpaste.

Check out this article which indicates that yet again, we are being poisoned by China.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/08/14/tainted-toothpaste-took-an-unchecked-route.aspx

Though I refuse to live my life in constant fear, I am going to watch what things I buy from abroad and perhaps buy things from my local market if possible.

Baby in a Pot

For a very long time, I have had a concept of doing a baby with spaghetti and tomato sauce series. Last night, I just got up the nerve and did it. Daphne had a blast, Jared had a good time, and I was even having a lot of fun too.

The cleanup was kind of crazy, but I enjoy the photos. They don't exactly meet my concept of what I wanted them to be, but I am pretty happy with them anyway.

Mail Delivery

Daphne really likes this box, so I thought that I would do a series of her in it. Here is what I came up with. What do you think?

Bathrobe and Ducky

Like I said, I took over 250 photos of Daphne yesterday. I had a heck of a good time. Here she is modeling her bathrobe and chewing on her rubber ducky. Tons of fun.

Black and White Baby

I have been playing around a lot with black and white, and there are some photos that I came up with really quickly one day after I got her out of the bath. I like the white on white feel with dark black lines. The photos are definitely cute.

What I Appreciate...

I have been thinking a lot lately about a lot of things.

I was telling Jared last night that people always tell me to enjoy my time with the baby while she is little because it doesn't last for long. Though I do understand what they are saying, I really do feel like I have been able to enjoy the time that I have had with her. We get along great, and we do all kinds of fun things together. I still miss her incredibly when I have to go off to weddings, but that doesn't mean that I can't snuggle with her when I come home.

I love her so much and enjoy my time with her.

I appreciate my husband. Even though since Daphne was born we spend a lot of time focusing on her and on him feeling better, we still get along great as a couple. He is so sweet and non critical. He loves to provide for his family and play with his wife and daughter. I appreciate him so much.

I do tell him a lot of times that I enjoy my job and that I am so glad that I have the opportunity to stay home with my baby and raise her the way I think it is right. I don't know if I can tell him enough. I think every day how grateful I am to be able to do the thing I think I do best. I like to raise our daughter and keep our house and work on my photography company. Jared has made it all possible, and that is what I appreciate.

Smiles and Crawls

Before I get too into putting some more fancy smancy professional photos up here. Here are some fun photos of Daphne during the time she decided to do some crawling. The girl is cute. I tell you that it is amazing that I get to spend all day with her most days. I really wouldn't give it up for the world.

Huh Chooooooo

I usually try to not put images up here that are not of a good technical quality. These ones are a little fuzzy, but I couldn't resist the sneezing sequence. I think it is adorable, especially the second one.

I'll take photos of anything my daughter does. Can you tell?

Mom, Mom, Let me in

Here she is clamoring to get back into the shower just after we got out. This one really is the water baby! Too bad she wasn't born in water.

Does That Baby Cry?

I take tons and tons of photos of my baby. I took about 250 of her just yesterday alone. I usually try to catch the good times, but just in case I forget in the future, there are a few tears here and there. This was a particularly traumatic protest. Tears from both eyes. I put the camera down right after and snuggled with her!

Random Act of Kindness

Here is my Random Act of Kindness story.

In March of 2005, I went to Greece alone, without my husband to study in photography school so that I might meet my dream of becoming a photographer. I had a huge suitcase because I was supposed to be staying for 4 months, and the amount of photography equipment I had was incredible.

There was a ferry strike the day that I got in on my plane, so I was stuck on the mainland of Greece with no idea of where I was or the culture that I was in. I had to find a hotel fast, so I booked one and set out to find where it was. I was unable to read or understand the signs because the were all in a different alphabet and a different language that I didn't understand at that time.

A young man on the bus saw me and saw the address I was going to. He got off the bus at the stop I was supposed to get off at and helped me get to the hotel.

The next day, I was trying to lug my suitcase around to get to the ferry. I had to use the metro, and I did not see an elevator. I was trying very hard to carry the suitcase up some stairs, and a man about 80 years old came up to me and grabbed the bag. Rather than take it from me, as I thought he was going to do, he carried it up 2 flights of stairs for me.

When I said, Thank you, thank you... He turned to me and said, "there is nothing to thank," and he walked away.

It brought tears to my eyes. Especially when I saw the elevator when I turned around to walk away.

Who Needs China Toys

Here is Daphne's new favorite form of entertainment. We can put her in the box and put her in various locations around the house with us, and she is happy to sit there. Especially if you drag her around in it! I love doing this.

In a world where plastic toys are both expensive and apparently hazardous, who needs them. Give your kids boxes to play with?

As a side note, this box was on its way to the recycling heap. Maybe I should pay more attention to the garbage we throw out. Do we have more potential baby toys in there?

Mom is Making Breakfast

I leave the baby with Jared in the morning and make breakfast. This is what I see if I sneak back in to look at the two of them.

Very cute!

We Love Swimming

I mentioned earlier that we had taken a swimming trip. My friend, Robin, went with us, and took some photos, which I got this morning. I thought I would share them.

Daphne loves to swim, and she is good at it! I didn't learn how to swim until later in life, so I'm glad we are starting early with her. We have been back to the pool 2 more times, and I plan to go tonight with Robin and my friend Julie as well. I'm very excited.

Chewing on Wires

We still haven't run the network wire under our house for my computer, so it is run across the floor. Now that she has started to crawl, she often finds it. Here is one such example.

I am trying to teach her not to chew on it, but I am losing quickly.

When Daphne Works with Dad

Sometimes I manage to hand Daphne to her dad while he is working, and she gets to sit with him.

Because she has found keyboards and liked to pound on them because they click, he has set aside a calcluator that she gets to play with. She chews on it and throws it on the floor, but this is a photo of her and her daddy while she still has he calculator in hand.

Mom spent her entire break photographing this trying to get the perfect smile out of dad.

Nake Crawling

Here is the naked baby crawling across my clean floor. Lots of fun. I love when she runs around naked.

As long as she has gone pee recently, she won't pee for another hour or so, so she gets some time to run around naked every day.

Wrapped Around the Table Leg

The other day she was chewing on her foot, but she had managed to get two limbs wrapped around our coffee table leg. It was pretty funny.

Here is the end of it, and then she decided to crawl away. Or at least try to. She is getting really close.

I'm trying to enjoy the time now because I know that mobile baby is not far off *sniff*

Playing with Mom

I was telling Jared yesterday that there were almost no photos of her and I but that there are lots of photos of him and her. Here is one of the rare ones of Daphne and I taken by Jared.

We were playing around. Specifically squishing her cheeks with her feet because she made a really funny face with her big, blue eyes when I did that.

She is so much of a riot. What a happy baby.

Reading Baby

She really likes to read. Here is my proof.

She likes this book a lot. We read one book every day at least, and she has just started to get into the phase where she wants to grab them all.

She chewed apart half of my school schedule yesterday while I was reading it, and when I got to those pages she was chewing and drooling on, they were all stuck together and illegible. Oh well.... Hope I didn't need to take any of those classes!

I am a big Dr. Seuss fan, so that is what we are reading now. I hope to progress on to something else, but I'm not sure were to go from here.