Portraits Revisited (or, "Photo Project 2")

And for week 2 of my one photo a day month...Here are the daily topics from Sunday, Feb 5 (kind of) through Saturday, Feb 11:

- 10am (I forgot to take the photo last Sunday!  Which would have probably been a pic of HD on the potty, so you're welcome on being spared that sight. You have Monday morning at my desk in the office instead.)
- dinner (awesome Hubs made a pizza with pine nuts when I wasn't feeling well.  And yes, he made the pizza.  No frozen ingredients whatsoever.  My hero.)
- button (courtesy of my cardigan and coat)
- sun (another make up pic from the next day. I was home with a sick HD on Wed so I snapped this shot of a building near my office on Thurs)
- front door (Hubs was home with sick HD this day,  and they came to meet me when I arrived home.  Nothing makes a working woman happier than that.)
- self portrait (note the tired/stressed tension in facial lines.  I was once an actress, but that's hard to fake with such accuracy unless you're Meryl.)
- makes you happy (napping kid definitely qualifies)

In case you can't tell, I'm having tons of fun playing with the photo effects, playing up various colors and lighting and faux old-timey qualities.  That's it for this week! More to come...

Yo Ho Ho Ho (or, "Christmas Tree Is Up!")

November was National Blog Posting Month.  The idea is that you try to post once each day for the whole month.  Let's just say that whoever picked November is masochist.  I was doing ok, and then the holiday and all its preparation kicked in.  So...glazing over the past couple of weeks?  The busiest time of year at work (for me, anyway) passed in a whirlwind, HD impressed everyone by chowing brussels sprouts at Thanksgiving, and teething incisors is the work of the devil.  You're all caught up! 

We focused this weekend on getting our Christmas on.  Heading out to get a real tree, we ended up getting dazzled at Home Depot by a glorious imitation 7.5 foot Black Hills Spruce, completely pre-lit with LED lights.  Both Hubs and I are from families with a known legacy of fake trees, so we jumped.  We put HD down for her nap, lit my mistletoe-flavored Yankee candles to complete the illusion of our faux tree, and got to work.  The beauty took about 15 minutes to put together (*choirs of angeles sang*), so we got to dive right into ornaments.  We thought for about 35 seconds about how to toddler proof the tree.  I personally think methodology should vary from kid to kid.  Our nugget?  Curious, but relatively obedient.  She puts stuff back if we tell her too...repeatedly.  Rather than go all out with a baby gate to block off the tree, we decided to stick it in a corner (protected on at least 2 sides without even trying!) out of her normal path of destruction (i.e. it's in the dining rather than living room).  

Upon waking from her nap, HD came down to behold the essence of merriment.  We even saved a few ornaments for her to put on.  She got so excited, she full-on attacked me.  I have the mussed hair to prove it.

But it's all good, because then I got her to say Merry Christmas for the camera.  Eh, sorta.

Kid has also taken a recent shine to that Santa Claus fellow.  She points him out everywhere, and repeatedly reminds us that he is coming to town.  Anytime she's thrown a fit this week, that song has talisman-like soothing qualities.  I think the "better not cry" line is what tames our beast.  HD also has rediscovered the same love of nutcrackers that she demonstrated this time last year.  We have a pirate one on our mantel (natch), which totally made her giggle last year.  Vid below was neigh on impossible to shoot -- me holding baby, maneuvering nutcracker and attempting to film all at once.  But I'll leave y'all on that note, so I can get back to my hot chocolate.

Pastimes of Yore ( or, "I Need a Hobby")

The weather's been gorgeous lately, so the daughter went for a romp the last weekend in a cold park fountain.  Watching HD's joyful abandon over running in gushing water...it makes my heart sing.  And I'll be honest, it also makes me a wee jealous.  It reminds me of that part in Knocked Up when Paul Rudd's character is watching his kids in the park, and he comments that he wished he enjoyed anything as much as his kids enjoy bubbles.  He obviously loves his kids, but he knows he needs something in his life that's just his own.

So Hubs and I have instituted taking every other Saturday morning off.  One of us spends quality time with HD, and the other one gets to do whatever he/she wants (sleep, errands, workout, laze about and watch tv).  Today's my morning off -- I'm thinking this could could be the perfect time to start dusting off old hobbies, or cultivate a new one.

Moonlighting on the Upper Deck (or, "Just Sleep, Already")

Dear HD,

Your daddy and mama think you hung the moon. Coming home to play with you after a long day at work...awesome.  I get excited when I ride the train, planning the games we'll play and songs we'll sing. Your parents love nothing more than making you laugh.  Oh, butterbean, we do got fun!

But.

Kindly refrain from awaking at 2:30am because you are anxious to play with us. Trust me, there's plenty of time for that after the more reasonable hour of 6am. We love you dearly (and thanks heaps for not waking up screaming), but the hour spent trying to get you back to sleep is more than a little ridiculous.  We'll play with you extra hard during daylight hours if you stay relatively quiet between the hours of 10pm-6am, ok?  I promise to play bouncy ball every day for a month if we can come to an agreement.

Love,
Mama

PS You've got some kickin' hair.  Who's your stylist? 

Insufferable Parrots (or, "Why Is There a Rooster in My Quiet Little 'Burb?")

I'm very used to waking up early.  Due to my train commute and trying to get a bebe and myself ready for the day, my weekdays start at 6am.  Since said bebe has no concept of sleeping in, weekends start at 6:30am if I'm lucky.  [Side note -- this morning, Hubs awoke with HD and let me sleep until 7:30am!! Utter bliss!]  Mind you, this doesn't typically bother me.  I mean, how could one ever mind waking up to this:

Yup, I put a naked pic of my kid on the interwebs.    I'll take it down before she's a teenager.

When HD has had a nice, long sleep, she is an absolute joy when she wakes.  All sunshine and smiles.  Super excited to see Daddy or Mama when either of us go in to get her.  It's like she can't wait to start a new day with her favorite people.  It's really pretty infectious.  And since she now (mostly) sleeps through the night, I'm usually just as stoked to wake and go into her room to greet her each morning.  Until recently, that is.

My little family lives in a small, quaint suburb.  All the restaurants here close by 9pm.  There are four senior living facilities here, and only one public high school.  The itsy bitsy Catholic university next to our neighborhood doesn't exactly have a thriving party atmosphere.  You don't hear any basic traffic noise between the hours 10pm and 6:30am.  "Quiet" barely begins to describe it -- try "sleepy," "placid,"  even "desolate."  

So imagine our surprise when, a couple of weeks ago, we heard the sounds of a faint "cockle-doodle-doo" at FOUR IN THE MORNING.  And it's continually happened (at varying degrees of volume) every morning since, usually from about 5-6:30am.  I don't want to be all City Mouse about this, but seriously?  I may jokingly refer to our little town as "the Boonies," but I did not sign up for Greenacres, y'all.  We inquired with neighbors, and it doesn't appear that anyone local is harboring illicit poultry.  The prevailing theory is that there's a wild rooster roaming about the college area.  We have deer, we even have mountain lion spottings, so I guess why not add wild fowl to the list?  Wonders never cease.

Until then, I think HD and I may have to obtain a couple of cutlasses and be on the lookout for this rooster.  I don't think roosters can really fly, so walking the plank may work as suitable punishment for our recent lack of sleep.

Beware the Lady Harrrrpington Smythe-Beard!