Foto Friday: Ballpark Edition

Mommy, Let's play PUNCH!

Image found on...er...flickr, yeah, flickr. I have no idea who this child is. (But hypothetically this may have occurred while the amateur photographer was trying to get her settings right, not really paying attention to her child and his destructive behaviors. Hypothetically.)

Parenting topic numero dos: Boys, Boys, Boys. This is a post for all 3 of you that have a boy besides me. Okay seriously, I know oodles of families with boys but they are either not Eliot’s age or not in our daily-life-social-circles. Eliot is constantly surrounded by girls. It has ALWAYS been this way. I pin the fact that he didn’t learn to crawl “on-time” because little girls kept bringing him all his toys. At church on Sunday I looked over at him just in time to see a girl feeding him a grape. Seriously. But that’s a whole other issue.

Focus, people. Squirrel!

This child-o-mine can be described in verbs at this stage. Verbs that don’t sound very nice. Punch, throw, kick, climb, etc.

Boys are different than girls. Parenting him feels different than watching my friends parent their little girls. It *sometimes* makes me wonder if he has issues. But then I remember he’s a boy. He pokes me in the eye to show me affection. He points out cute penguins to tell me that they just "tooted."

But that’s a slippery slope. The day I mutter the words, “He just has a lot of energy…” will be a bad day. A very bad day filled with dairy and shoe shopping. And I shall die on that hill. Maybe I’m jaded to that excuse from teaching because in my mind, "kids with no discipline at home" is the synonym for “having a lot of energy.” So it's the balance of consistent discipline vs letting a boy be a boy that we're trying to figure out here.

(oops, how did that get in there? weird.)

I’m currently in search of a good book on parenting boys. Not necessarily because I think we’re doing a bad job, mainly because we’ve frankly never done it before. We don't have a problem with him sneaking ants in the house and whatnot. I am prepared for (more) stitches and broken glass, etc. Again, it's the balance between that and for-the-love-of-dairy-please-stop-kicking-the-dishwasher!

Nicole's facebook status once joked something about toddlers being bipolar. Parenting boys makes me feel bipolar. Within minutes I want to squeeze him because he's driving me batty and the next because he's so flippin' sweet. That's probably not specific to boys, actually. I think parenting was designed to make you feel that way.

Keep in mind, while I look forward to braiding a little girl's hair and shopping and painting nails, etc. I absolutely love the essence of 'boy'! As a teacher, I preferred a room of boys, so much less drama. I love adventure. I just need some ideas on how to keep the adventure from becoming a behavior issue. Make sense? I feel foggy.

So, parenting a boy: where should our expectations be? Still trying to figure that out. Tips? Stories? Encouragements? Book recommendations? Judgements? Comments = open forum. Go for it.

Bump-It News!

Thanks to Deb for letting us know that our favorite accessories are on sale at ...Toys r us.

Bucket.

I made a plan. It came together. I started training.

Raise your hand if you're in a parenting funk?

**Btdubs, this post is not written well or even well thought out, so if it's not really flowing just look at the shoes again and move along..

Let's talk about something. Mommy guilt. Ugly mommy guilt. UMG. Somewhat, but not at all, like OMG. Which I'm not a fan of.

(The shoes don't really have anything to do with it, they're just an attention getter. And a break for you from Eliot pictures. And a thank you card to Steve Madden for knowing my needs before I even utter them.)

Last week was my one-year anniversary of working full-time. Or one-year of juggling emotions on being away from a child I worked pretty stinkin' hard to get. One year of cramming bonding moments into the couple hours between work and bedtime and on weekends. 12 months of wondering what he's doing, what he's learning, what he's getting away with, what silly thing he said, what I would do if I were that mom jogging by my window with her stroller during work hours instead of behind this really attractive ear-piece talking about cables and fuses. One year of telling myself how happy I am that lots of my friends are stay-at-home moms, what a great opportunity it is for them.

Last week I was having wine with some other moms one night. It was a great night with these somewhat new-ish friendships. All 5 of us have different work/school schedules and there was a running theme at one point, no matter how many hours you're out of the house. Mommy guilt.

"Am I doing enough?" Probably not. "I could be ____ if I was ___."

I feel like this is one of the those areas that we're all our 'own worst critic' with a side of 'grass is always greener.' (Aww, look at the cliche besties!) If you work out of the home, you feel guilty you're not logging the hours you should be, not to mention the lack of energy once you've gotten home after a long day, having to do housework at some point and blah blah. If you work at home, you feel guilty that you're mentally pulled in two directions, constantly debating your quality in either place. If you are a SAHM, you feel guilty that you're not being a good steward of the time you do get, the blessing it is that you have this opportunity but for pete's sake can I please have a few hours to myself!?

But then you bust out a killer craft and you feel pretty dang proud, especially if it's edible. But then your kid gives you attitude, the laundry gets up and walks out, and you realize that not only do you not have a plan for dinner but there's no food in the house and you never called that friend back and I was totally gonna teach myself how to sew today. Ugh.

Go look at the shoes again. Deep breath.

It's overwhelming at times. The good news is, we love our kids. Bottom line. We love them. And yes, the day-to-day, working/non-working, time vs. money juggling act can mess with your mind but it's all a season.

Ya know, my parents both worked full-time, the ENTIRE TIME I've been alive and *gasp* I still love them to pieces and harbor no ill-will toward those decisions. Because they love me and I've never doubted that for a second.

I think this whole UMG is a distraction. Plain and simple. A lying distraction.

Today I choose to make the most of my time w/ E-beast and that's the long and the short of it. It may not be a couple of hours that I use to teach him how to read or taking long bike rides together. It may be doing laundry together but that's okay, too. Because at some point during laundry I will squeeze him until he says, "No fanks mom."

Btdubs, I have another parenting post coming. Deal with this first, then the secondary issue. Ugh. Or go read this post by my friend Heather, cuz I could have written myself...

Bits of my weekend, Vol 19

At the last minute our plans changed for this weekend which left it wide open. R was home so we went to the Botanical Gardens (in our neighborhood) which is free Saturday mornings (even the Dinosaur exhibit.)











We are slightly obsessed with the farmers market. Can't help it.


Does this strike anyone else as funny?

Eliot's new obsession: blueberry shaved ice.

For more Bits from around the country, click here!

Nurse Bump-It!

Not only is my friend Katie bumpin' it but she's also a newly certified RN! Congrats Katie, you chose a fantastic way to celebrate.

**It should also be known that she was challenged to a triple bump-it, hence the height. I've never been so proud.

mi CASA es su CASA

Have you heard of CASA? Just like lots of things in the fostering system, I hadn't heard of it until a few months ago.

Here's a little tidbit from their website:

CASA is the only volunteer organization that empowers everyday citizens as officers of the court. In an overburdened social welfare system, abused and neglected children often slip through the cracks among hundreds of current cases. CASA volunteers change that. Appointed by judges, CASA volunteers typically handle just one case at a time—and commit to staying on that case until the child is placed in a safe, permanent home. While others may come and go, CASA volunteers provide that one constant that children need in order to thrive.

How incredible is that? I love it. I love the team. I love that *ideally* when a child enters the system, the team springs into action. And this CASA person? Incredible. I am blown away by what people do as volunteers.

If you've followed my blog at all in the last couple years you know of Jodie from Fresh Art. Her father's company did something really amazing for a fundraiser for CASA lately and I didn't want to miss the chance to brag on people giving to that organization. Jodie blogged about it here and of course, included great pics. Check it out.

Also, if you know of anyone who might be a good fit for CASA, send them to that website. And then hug them. And buy them chocolate.

Bits of my weekend, Vol 18

Well, hey, farmers market of joy...

ugh.

E-beast and I made cookie bugs. The recipe calls it "Honeybee" but uh...we renamed them cookie bugs.




Might be my favorite picture of all time.


(All photos done on manual! Ah! I can't believe it! I'm *sort of* getting the hang of it. Oh man do I have so far to go, though.)

Fresh Moms...

Jodie and Kim of Fresh Art Photography offered a class to moms w/ a good camera that don't quite know what they're doing. I thought this was a fantastic opportunity. We invested in this Rebel and gotten much better pics than our 'point and shoot' but I was still treating it like a glorified 'point and shoot.' I had no idea what equipment I had and it's potential. So, I thought the class would be a good investment in our investment. Every day since that class I've taken pics (except about 2). I've only switched back to "auto" a couple times just to see what the exact same shot would look like and been really happy to see my manual settings get the better one!

Practicing:





During our class, Jodie encouraged us to take pics of the day-to-day, not just the big occasions like birthday parties. While it's fun to see who was at your parties, we tend to get curious at some point what the day to day looked like when we were kids. So, that recommendation led me to this photo:

Eliot constantly plays on this window sill with his cars. Constantly. Sometimes crashing into each other, sometimes having "circle time", sometimes saying words Eliot's not allowed to say and getting time-outs for it, and pretty often he gets distracted by a cool car or firetruck driving down the road and becomes so calm and sweet, just staring out the window. Then monster-mommy comes and eats his little cheeks right off. (picture not included.)

E-man has become my little assistant. He is BFF with the camera but I have to be subtle about it until invited in. So, while I "practice" getting to know my camera settings, he will often set up the shot for me. Then when a toy accidentally falls and he cracks up, I snap the real picture I want. Sneak, sneak.