Bits and Blogs

I've just had a very inspiring Scrapbook gathering at my house this morning. Everytime I gather with likeminded women I come away fueled with ideas that I can't wait to apply to what I'm doing. Today I had the added bonus of getting to know a woman whose daughter is in Caitlin's Kindergarten class. She too keeps a blog. She uses Word Press on her Mac and Adobe Lightroom 2 to organize and edit her photos. I had an interesting conversation with her and Barb, who uses Memory Manager by Creative Memories to store her photos on her PC. I use Picassa on my PC but I'm considering moving to a Mac. We discussed storing photos, digital scrapbooking and then using blogs to capture the little moments in life.

I came away from the conversation inspired to rethink how I'm using (or not using) my blog. This other woman shared with me how she manages to incorporate writing blog entries into her busy day with two children and a part-time profession outside her home. I still think of blogging as journaling. I often want to spend a lot of time crafting my entry, thinking about the content in a very reflective manner. And then I want to add photos or images. Life with three children does not facilitate that kind of entry on a regular basis, not if I want to spend time with my children, my husband, getting things done around the house or engaging in activites like spending time with friends, reading, scrapbooking, sewing, attending field trips or school activities or petitioning school boards

She keeps her laptop in her kitchen, with her blog open and writes in frequent short bursts throughout the day when she has a few moments. She doesn't add photos immediately because she wants to get the text down and out to share with family and friends. Sometimes she adds links to photos in a web album if she has them uploaded but no time to extract an image to add to her blog.

So today I have an entry here. I miss my blog. I miss capturing the day to day moments and interactions that add up to our life. I miss keeping a record here of how the children are developing. I'll see what evolves. In the meantime:

Ethan is sleeping nearly 12 hours at night, has some wake ups during that time some nights. With daylight savings he has been awake earlier this week and we are trying to help him adjust bit by bit dragging out the time he gets his morning feed. James has now taken over seeing to Ethan during then night. He gets upset if I interact with him. He probably associates me too much with food!

He started bopping his head this week. I bought Sting's new Winter album at the weekend and Ethan seems to have started bopping to that. Then yesterday my friend Rosemary came around to watch him while I caught up on a few things here. Ethan has a musical worm and Rosemary informed me that when he held it sitting in his little chair she enjoyed watching him bop his head to the music. Definitely has his daddy's genes.

And this week he is pushing himself backwards more as he attempts to go forward. I love thinking back of Ashley and Caitlin at this stage and how frustrated they would get at going in the opposite direction to their intention. He's also rolling around more as a means to get where he wants to go.

He loves holding his little plastic spoons, even when he's not eating. He took one trick-or-treating. I didn't even notice he was still holdng it until we were out on the street. (He's getting better at holding things he likes for longer periods too!)

And the joy he experiences around his sisters is just a delight to witness. Ashley plays with him gently, will often escalate the pitch of her voice with lots of arm waving and make him giggle. In the car she closes her eyes and rests her head on her shoulder and then "wakes up" and say something cheery like "hello Ethan" causing him to emit a burst of laughter that makes me melt as I drive. They will engage like this over and over, neither running out of steam. Caitlin is still more energetic loves to jump on him and pull a limb, whether he is lying down or in my arms. She'll then loundly say something like, Boo! or "Ethan, Ethan" and he will just chortle away every time. I try to ask her to be gentler with him but it's hard to convince her when Ethan is so obviously loving the "game". Ethan is a very lucky little boy to have such entertaining sisters.

Well time to go get him, he's been sliding around backwards on the hardwood floor in his sleeper suit. He's gone behind the kitchen counter where I can no longer see him. Time to take a peek and see what he's up to.