Capturing Childhood

That is why I am creating this blog. I am a sleep deprived mommy to Oliver age almost 3 months, and Marissa age almost 3 years, and I need all the help I can get in remembering and capturing my kid's amazing personalities, and memories. Journaling the old fashioned way just isn't cutting it! It takes far too long to write by hand. With one kid it was doable, with two, hmmm, well let's see since I haven't even uploaded all the photos of Marissa since before Oliver was born, much less organized them, I guess you could say I need all the help I can get! One of my best friends gave me a jar of "freezer jam" that she had canned with her three year old son, oh and did I mention she just had a baby 6 weeks ago?! This puts me to momma shame. I wish I had time to be doing long projects like that with Marissa, but I am lucky if we eat our meals off of non-disposable dinnerware sooner than later. Sometimes I come up with great ideas like making homemade play dough while I am poking around the Internet after the kids have gone to bed, but when daylight hits, I can't figure out how to keep a three month old happy enough in his bouncer long enough to do the project with Marissa (stove top cooking scares me these days, between recent potty training success and volcanic diapers, well, why risk burning the house down?) Well, this blog will document some of what I do accomplish and hopefully preserve some of the priceless things that my kids say and do, that I just don't want to forget as the days go by. I'll blame the lack of memory retaining on my sleep deprivation!

A few memories from today: *Going to get a pedicure for the first time since Oliver was born and wanting to be home every minute of it with my kids. I actually had to get a pedi because our french bulldog has the sharpest hairs on the planet and they get stuck in my feet if my skin isn't butter soft. Woe is me, I know, but I really realized how much I love my job when I was sitting there getting my calfs massaged by someone who also looked less than pleased to be there, and all I could think in my head, was "could you please hurry this massage up?" I came home to a fussy baby and a wild toddler, and I wished I had never left. Lately I have been sneaking into Marissa's bedroom after she falls asleep to see how adorable my little almost three year old girl looks all snug in her bed. Until I started doing this, I never knew that she drew the blankets up around herself after I kissed her goodnight (she always pushes them away when I leave the room.) It really is the little things in life that tug at your heart strings.

Which is also partly why I am starting this blog, because I have been so inspired by this mom's blog here (and her amazing photography!), I could lose myself in her blog forever (www.http://www.kellehampton.com/2010/01/nella-cordelia-birth-story.html) *My shy, sweet, Marissa volunteering at her second dance/ballet class to be the teacher's helper and demo a recital costume in front of tons of parents and kids. I was so proud of her, to see her face beam so proudly when the teacher thanked her for her help, and her sweet nature coming through when she hugged her teacher goodbye, just made my heart melt for other people to see what a loving child I have. *Oliver is getting more and more animated everyday. He is at his most verbose and is quite chatty in his red bouncy chair or his changing table. He will just grin from ear to ear, or should I say, dimple to dimple. That is until I take out our big Nikon camera and he stares at it all seriously trying to figure it out, and I cannot get him to crack a smile for the life of me with the big camera pointed at him! Stubborn little cookie! Let me work at catching that elusive smile, and when I get a good one, I'll post it here. Stay tuned.

Marissa sleeping after I snuck in to photograph her:

And, baby brother sleeping on the same night: