Day 215

Soren slept basically all night Friday night again. This is a trend I would like to see continued! Things are so much better when we can all get some solid sleep. Saturday, around mid-morning, the fellas went out for a drive, permitting me the opportunity to take a nice relaxing bath and then watch three X-Files episodes in a row. The remainder of the day consisted of more resting, and in the evening Tom made some tasty soup for dinner, which Soren actually ate. So in that respect, Saturday was a resounding success. I, however, never took my camera down from its perch, and thus never got a photo of the lad for the day. D'oh.

Saturday night found me awake for 4 1/2 hours in the middle of it. Stupid pregnancy insomnia. So yeah, normally I'd just snap a photo first thing Sunday morning and call it good for Saturday, but I didn't wake up until almost 11 on Sunday, so there went that plan.

I didn't feel well pretty much all day on Sunday. Must've been the lack of sleep, because I'm doing better today, but yesterday had me worried that I was going to get the 3rd trimester resurgence of morning sickness, which I definitely don't want. Not interested, thank you! No need to add nausea to the heartburn and start racking up the rest of the symptoms from a Pepto Bismol commercial.

Since I finally remembered to snag my camera Sunday evening, I caught this quick photo of the lad exhibiting rare behavior and stuffing his face. We'll just ignore the fact that he's stuffing his face with a tortilla chip and focus on the fact that he'd actually eaten some vegetables earlier in the evening. ;)

Day 213

Friday evening we headed over to Max & Agnes's for dinner. We made chili and hush puppies and salad. It was cold outside! We made sure the lad was appropriately bundled. He played with Spork (M & A's cat) and kept wanting to give him kisses. He was up quite a bit later than usual, so it wasn't a huge surprise when he passed out in the car on the way home. More surprising was that he stayed asleep all the way back up to the apartment. (Lately he's been waking up not long after the car stops.) He was pretty cute, snoozing with his behatted head resting on Tom's shoulder.

Day 212

Wednesday night, Soren woke up briefly about an hour or so after we'd put him to bed and then proceeded to sleep uninterrupted all the way until after 6am! It was pretty amazing. Of course, I slept horribly, awake every few hours just the same. Blah.

Thursday morning, we went to playgroup at the library, as we are wont to do on many Thursdays. In spite of having slept so soundly the night before, Soren was all eye-rubby and crabby while we were there, which was unfortunate. There was one short period of happy play though that made me regret not bringing my camera. Soren and two other little boys had confiscated one of the library carts and were wheeling it all around the room. Then Soren decided to climb onto the bottom shelf of the cart and kind of hang half off it, lying on his belly, while the other two boys pushed. It was hilarious.

Back home, we both had a nice long nap. I'm glad that, even when I don't get enough sleep at night, I can almost always count on getting a decent nap during the afternoon these days. It helps.

In the evening, Soren snatched this shirt my sister got for him out of the closet and insisted on wearing it. It's still rather large on him (it's a size 4T) but actually fit all right over the shirt he was already wearing. Go figure.

Comparison bellies

On the left, we have the picture I took today, 30 weeks pregnant with the little miss. On the right, that was me 29 weeks pregnant with Sir. Amusing!

Day 211

It seems like no matter where we were today, Soren wanted to be somewhere else.

Before he had a chance to go too stir crazy this morning, we went to a playgroup meetup at the fun coffee house that has a little play area for the kiddos. He played contentedly for a little while, but before long he kept trying to make a break for the front door, saying "Go-go?" and "Bye-bye!" all the while. I made him stick around til I had at least finished my tea and made some attempt to socialize with the other moms. Next we made a run to Trader Joe's, then home for naptime. Practically as soon as we'd walked in the door at home he wanted to go out again, but he did eventually settle down and nap. After naptime, it was off to the midwives' for my 30 week appointment. They were running a little behind schedule, so we were stuck in the lobby a bit longer than usual, and it didn't take long for the chorus of "Go-go?" to start up again. He was reasonably well behaved throughout the actual appointment, fortunately, and we were soon headed home again. Back home, he was all about "Walk? Walk?" Never satisfied! Hehe.

Tom's been trying to teach Soren how to jump. It's kind of funny that this isn't an intuitive skill. The boy's starting to get the idea though, and oh my goodness is he ever pleased with himself when he sort of successfully gets his heels off the ground. This evening he completely wore himself into a panting exhaustion with repeated attempts of crouch-fling-crouch-fling-crouch-fling. Freaking hilarious.

Day 210

Tuesday was the big state election for governor & delegates to the state assembly and whatnot. Our designated polling place is at another apartment complex about a block away (weird, right?) so I packed the lad into the stroller, plied him with snacks, and waddled my way down to go vote. It's amusing, if not terribly surprising, that every place I've lived has a different system for casting ballots. Oregon exclusively uses absentee ballots; no polling places, no waiting in lines, just fill it out and mail it in. California has its Ink-a-Vote ballot (not to be confused with Inca Vote) and paper registry books that you sign when you check in for voting. Virginia has electronic voting machines. You check in with a volunteer, who hands you a "Voter Registration Verified" card. Then you walk over to another table where you hand that card to another volunteer, who prints out a ticket with your "Voter ID" number. Then you enter that number into the voting machine and commence voting. Pretty interesting.

That was really our big excitement for the day. Just walking down to the polling place and back (pushing the heavy lad in the stroller through big piles of fallen leaves on the sidewalk) left me pretty worn out, so I caught a nice nap with Soren in the afternoon. In the evening, after the usual games were afoot, I caught a photo of Soren sharing his new-found tooth brushing obsession with Tom. It was rather cute.

A Thousand Words

This week's topic of self-indulgent navel gazing: Photography as Creative Outlet

I take a lot of pictures. As well you know. Most of them, while much appreciated for their value as records of the little Sir's growth and development...

Newborn


6 months


1 year


18 months

...are not exactly what you'd call art. Cute as hell (let's all take a moment and say "Aww...") but not art. And I wouldn't mind elevating my photography a little, not because I have aspirations of "going pro" or anything, but because it's fun to work at a creative pursuit until you get better at it.

Creative outlets are valuable, I think. Mentally stimulating, emotionally satisfying, simply enjoyable. This isn't any sort of major revelation. I've written before about how much I liked playing a musical instrument back in high school. I used to enjoy creative writing but seem to have been ruined by years of scientific writing (sad). Photography's a logical choice of creative pursuit for me right now because it's pretty easy to practice basically anywhere, it doesn't have to be particularly time (or money) intensive, and I really do enjoy it. Plus I have a kick-ass camera.

So. How does one go about becoming a better photographer? Pretty much the same way you get better at anything (duh) - lots of practice, occasional advice and feedback from people who are better at it than you are. To that end, I've joined the online community of photographers at Digital Photo Challenge. There are official themed "challenges" every week, wherein you submit your photo to be judged (harshly) by the rest of the community, many members of which are incredibly talented. Right after I joined the site, I submitted a photo to a "Male Portrait" themed challenge (guess who!); I thought my picture was pretty good, but it was completely ripped apart by the voters. Among their criticisms and critiques were little nuggets of useful advice, and I've done steadily better in subsequent challenges, but I've clearly got a long way to go before I can even hope to land in the top 10 or 20.

More valuable have been the side challenges. These are unjudged and last (usually) for a month. Everyone's really supportive and encouraging, and while the idea is to try and post a new photo every day, there's no pressure or obligation to do so. September's side challenge was particularly useful for me because the theme was basically "What if?" Everyone was tasked with trying things outside what they'd normally do and seeing what sorts of interesting results they came up with. It was really interesting to kind of play around with camera settings and try things I wouldn't necessarily have thought to do otherwise. Some examples:

What if I intentionally overexpose the image?


What if I intentionally underexpose the image?


What if I kick the lens out of focus?


What if I start with the lens focused, but then kick it out during a long exposure?


What if I don't worry about holding the camera steady during a long exposure?


What if I zoom in during a long exposure?


Now, I'm not saying these pictures are any better or worse than all the Soren snapshots. Their artistic merit is still debatable. ;) But part of the process is taking risks and trying new things, which just might end up producing something interesting.

In any event, that's a little of what I've been doing lately in the pursuit of becoming a better photographer. Whether or not I'm actually improving yet, I'm having fun with it. And that's important too, right?

Day 209

It seems we've reached the super fun stage of toddler development I like to call the "Mountain outofa Molehill" stage, wherein every tiny affront is perceived by the wee one as a monumental injustice. Case in point: Monday morning the lad had a complete bawling meltdown because I wouldn't take him for a walk right that instant (all my maternity pants were in the dryer, and as happy as I am to oblige his desires for fresh air and the outside world, I'm not going out there pantsless). Once we did go out, though, he became as pleasant and happy a fellow as you could ask for. He reaffirmed my suspicions that the way to his stomach is through a change of scenery; once strapped in his car seat, he scarfed down the dried fruit bar that he wouldn't touch when we were in the apartment. And then he ate a decent-sized lunch while we were out. I suppose as long as I have an excuse to take him out and about every few days he won't completely starve.

From the time we left the apartment until around dinnertime, he was in a fine mood. We got back from our erranding, and he took a two-and-a-half hour nap! Sweet, sweet silence for two and a half hours. It was lovely. Then he found and played with my shoes for a little while (resulting in the above photo), which was way cute.

My big chore for the day was to convert the lad's crib to a toddler bed. It's getting too difficult for me to heft him over the rail and set him down gently. So off came the drop-side. I added a rolled up towel under the fitted sheet to act as a bumper and put some cushions in a pillowcase on the floor so he could climb up and down more easily on his own. All in all, I think it came out pretty nice.

(I also later wedged a pillow between the bed and the changing table, just in case the towel bumper didn't keep him from squiggling his way off the side in the night.)

He slept there for most of the night last night, so I'll consider that a success!

Day 208

Sunday was a catch-up day. Got (mostly) caught up on laundry, caught up on our TV viewing, and Tom cleaned both the bathrooms and the kitchen because he is awesome like that.

Soren's been on quite a tooth brushing kick lately. He asks to brush his teeth at least 3-5 times a day, which is almost as many times as he asks for a bath. Our lad is fond of hygiene, it seems. ;)

In other news, the Pine Mouth seems to be mostly abated. Thank goodness! That was really unpleasant.

Day 207

Happy Halloween! I took the boy - in costume, of course - out to run errands in the late morning. (I thought it wise to wait until today to pick up any Halloween candy, given my pregnancy-induced sweet tooth and Tom's ever-present one.) We got a fair number of trick-or-treaters in the evening, and Soren got to dress up again to greet people at the door. Since he wore the puppy suit on Thursday, we put him in the bear suit today. It just barely fits him anymore! When we got it, it was pretty huge on him (granted, that was nearly a year ago). He's a string bean, our lad.

Here he is digging through the candy bowl. He was actually more interested in pointing out all the letters on the candy bars than anything else. Silly guy.

And then the Ducks beat USC in a rather serious smackdown. Booyah.