I thought I'd take a moment here (mostly for my own reference) and make a note of a few bloggy resources I've found that have been uber-helpful to me as I navigate the world of parenting.
Ask Moxie
Back in the day when Kaycie was totally uncommunicative and I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on with her sleeping/eating/teething/etc., I would generally go to this site and search for posts on whatever was going on. The language is occasionally not family friendly, but the advice is usually quite good, whether it's from Moxie or in the comments from her readers. She often admits that she has no idea how to help somebody with a problem, but puts it out there for others to chime in. She also provided me with the motto that helped me survive the difficult sleeping periods - "Nobody has ever had to move to college with their kid to rock them to sleep every night. They will, eventually, learn to sleep." I can't tell you how many times I searched her sight for the phrase "sleep regression." I also picked up a couple of books recommended on her sight, such as The Wonder Weeks. This is my top pick for common sense approaches to parenting freak outs.
Rookie Moms
Rookie Moms is more activity related than problem solving. I didn't find it as useful, but I think it will be moreso as Kaycie gets older and more into structured activities. They've started a new series to challenge new moms to do a certain activity with their infant each week. I wish they'd had that series when Kaycie was itty bitty.
Wholesome Homemade Baby Food
Ok, that link isn't to their blog, but they do have one. This was my go-to site for feeding Kaycie when I started her on solids. It was actually pretty easy for me to make her baby food at home, and this had handy guides on what was safe to feed her at certain ages, as well as recipes for more interesting things to fix and methods for fixing it. Now that's she's grown out of "baby" food I've started following the Weelicious blog, but Wholesome Homemade Baby Food does have a toddler section, too.
Baby Cheapskate
Awesome resource for sales and deals on diapers, formula, clothes, and baby gear. They have a weekly post for best diaper and formula deals and a ton of posts all week about sales online and in-store for baby/toddler/kid and maternity wear as well as toys and baby gear as well as coupon codes, etc.
Goddess in Progress
This one isn't particularly geared toward taking questions or providing a resource, but I got hooked on it when Moxie linked to the post on the uber-swaddle, which saved my sanity when my child was a couple of months old. She has twins who are (I think) 4ish and one on the way, which makes her life way more interesting than mine.
Most of my recent finds are more activity related for toddlers. I found two main sites that linked to a whole lot of other sites, and I've added a ton to my feed reader in the past two weeks to follow and see which ones are most appropriate for what I'm looking for. Instead of listing all of those, I'll list the two main site:
1+1+1=1 (mostly the section called Tot School) and the related site Totally Tots. From these sites I have added a lot of blogs of moms who participate in the Tot School program. It's basically a more organized system of what Kaycie and I spend a lot of time doing, but has a lot of new ideas for developmental play. Since I really have no idea of what I types of skills she should be developing at this stage, I'm finding these resources extremely helpful. My favorite site from Tot School so far is Chasing Cheerios.
The other set of activity based blogs is from Play-Activities and Pink and Green Mama. A lot of their stuff is going to be too advanced for Kaycie for a while, but I like getting a look at what's ahead!
I found some of these sites through the Raising Playful Tots Index, which lists a ton of useful, educational sites. Several of the blogs I'm following now are Montessori based, which I find interesting and hope to learn more about if I can ever find some of the books I'm looking for. I have no intention of going all strict-Montessori on my kid, but the ideas and concepts look challenging and I think some of it could be incorporated into our fun time!
Ok, I think that covers most of what I've been reading online lately, other than a big list of photography and food related blogs! I doubt if those will be very helpful to anybody but me at this point, but at least I now have a list for myself.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
What Have I Done?
This seems crazy. Even for me. But my Nikon D40 has gone wonky over the past few months. Really wonky. And I take pictures every day. Literally. I'm doing a 365 project this year where I'm taking at least one picture a day as a way to improve my photography and an excuse to take random pictures of things that aren't my child. I have been trying different things to fix it but nothing was working. The D40 is pretty "old" in terms of technology (I bought it on closeout when it was discontinued 2 years ago, it had been in the market for several years before that) so Greg finally convinced me to give up on fixing it and just upgrade. So I did. After much internal debate, I switched to a Canon. I'll have to replace one lens and my remote, but I don't think it'll be that big of an extra expense in the long run. The lenses on the Canon are generally cheaper than the Nikkor lenses anyway. But that's neither here nor there.
Today was gorgeous. After a week of total nastiness, the sun came out, the temp warmed up, and I had a Superbowl related errand to run. So I threw my camera in the car, make quick work of a trip to Walgreens, then hit a couple of photographic spots on the way home to give the T1i a test drive.
I should say up front that when I started this project I did invest in Photoshop Elements software and I did throw a few basic edits on these, but I'm not really talented enough to do anything intensive. I'd like the flag picture better if the cloud wasn't behind it. That one will probably get retaken at some point during my project. The fountain is my picture of the day for today. I loved the sparklies from the sun. The last one is a marble globe on campus at MC. It seems like a great photographic subject until you realize it's totally reflective so every picture is a self portrait. And it's scratched up pretty bad anyway. But I liked this shot. I didn't even crop it, just toned down the light some (the sun was BRIGHT today).
I think I'm going to like my new camera. I'll like it a lot more when I get another prime lens to go on the end of it. I've been spoiled by my Nikkor 35mm/f1.8 AF-S. It makes gorgeous portrait and bokeh shots. Going to get a 50mm/1.8 for the Canon, but not today.
Today was gorgeous. After a week of total nastiness, the sun came out, the temp warmed up, and I had a Superbowl related errand to run. So I threw my camera in the car, make quick work of a trip to Walgreens, then hit a couple of photographic spots on the way home to give the T1i a test drive.
I should say up front that when I started this project I did invest in Photoshop Elements software and I did throw a few basic edits on these, but I'm not really talented enough to do anything intensive. I'd like the flag picture better if the cloud wasn't behind it. That one will probably get retaken at some point during my project. The fountain is my picture of the day for today. I loved the sparklies from the sun. The last one is a marble globe on campus at MC. It seems like a great photographic subject until you realize it's totally reflective so every picture is a self portrait. And it's scratched up pretty bad anyway. But I liked this shot. I didn't even crop it, just toned down the light some (the sun was BRIGHT today).
I think I'm going to like my new camera. I'll like it a lot more when I get another prime lens to go on the end of it. I've been spoiled by my Nikkor 35mm/f1.8 AF-S. It makes gorgeous portrait and bokeh shots. Going to get a 50mm/1.8 for the Canon, but not today.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Challenging
I won't lie, this week has been challenging. I convinced myself last night that today would be a better day, then went to bed.
The pup woke me up at 4am. I couldn't get back to sleep until right before Greg's alarm went off, before 7. Kaycie was up before 8, coughing worse than she was yesterday.
I knew that with the pending blizzardpallooza, which is more likely to contain ice than snow, I need to go ahead and run my Friday errands today. Kaycie seemed to know I was in a hurry and it took us FOREVER to get out of the house. Without my gloves. And my gas tank was sitting on empty.
Gas - check. Bank to get my weekly cash - check. Walmart - groan. We made it through. Kaycie was not a happy camper and I realized after we started shopping that the seat belt clip on the baby seat was broken. Grreeeaaaat. My little escape artist would NEVER crawl out of the buggy. I don't even want to talk about the rest of the trip to Walmart. Or the total meltdown she had while waiting in line, in the car, and continued after we got home.
I finally got Kaycie down for a nap, which is already 10 minutes more nap than she got yesterday. The child is inconsolable when she doesn't get a good nap. I need to come up with something fun to do this afternoon, as it is waaaay to cold to be outside and we will both have a better day if she is entertained! Perhaps I will go make some playdough.
The pup woke me up at 4am. I couldn't get back to sleep until right before Greg's alarm went off, before 7. Kaycie was up before 8, coughing worse than she was yesterday.
I knew that with the pending blizzardpallooza, which is more likely to contain ice than snow, I need to go ahead and run my Friday errands today. Kaycie seemed to know I was in a hurry and it took us FOREVER to get out of the house. Without my gloves. And my gas tank was sitting on empty.
Gas - check. Bank to get my weekly cash - check. Walmart - groan. We made it through. Kaycie was not a happy camper and I realized after we started shopping that the seat belt clip on the baby seat was broken. Grreeeaaaat. My little escape artist would NEVER crawl out of the buggy. I don't even want to talk about the rest of the trip to Walmart. Or the total meltdown she had while waiting in line, in the car, and continued after we got home.
I finally got Kaycie down for a nap, which is already 10 minutes more nap than she got yesterday. The child is inconsolable when she doesn't get a good nap. I need to come up with something fun to do this afternoon, as it is waaaay to cold to be outside and we will both have a better day if she is entertained! Perhaps I will go make some playdough.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Wait For It...
What? You thought I'd return to blogging without some pictures of my baby girl? Crazy talk.
Helping unload the dishwasher. (Notice the only silverware left is HER spoons. Those always come out last, after a bit of reorganizing.)
We started a new semester of Kindermusik, which is FUN. Kaycie likes to play the drum.
And finally, my baby girl has been sick with the ickies for a week and today we went to the doc for better meds. Thankfully just an upper respiratory thing. She was coughing so bad last night I was starting to worry about RSV. Doc said she'd seen a whole lot of it today, so hopefully we didn't bring it home! (Ignore the bruises on her face. I promise we haven't been beating her. And she's actually added a couple more since I took this. Sigh.)
Helping unload the dishwasher. (Notice the only silverware left is HER spoons. Those always come out last, after a bit of reorganizing.)
We started a new semester of Kindermusik, which is FUN. Kaycie likes to play the drum.
And finally, my baby girl has been sick with the ickies for a week and today we went to the doc for better meds. Thankfully just an upper respiratory thing. She was coughing so bad last night I was starting to worry about RSV. Doc said she'd seen a whole lot of it today, so hopefully we didn't bring it home! (Ignore the bruises on her face. I promise we haven't been beating her. And she's actually added a couple more since I took this. Sigh.)
La Dee Da Dee Da
So this is the post where I pretend I haven't abandoned my blog since October and just keep moving like nothing ever happened...
So I'm thinking about moving my blog to WordPress. I've messed around with it a bit and it offers a lot more flexibility but it can be more complicated as well. (Although If I'm only going to post once every 4 months, I guess it won't matter...)
My baby girl has become the biggest helper ever. She helps unload the dishwasher. She wants to do it two or three times a day. Even when it's empty. Or half full of dirty dishes. She wants to load and unload the washer and dryer. By putting dirty clothes in the dryer and clean clothes in the washer. She wants to help fold the laundry too, by unfolding things and tossing them back in the basket. She has her own little broom and likes to sweep. I wish I could get some of her silliness on video but the nanosecond I pick up the video camera she moves like metal to a magnet. But she's such a sweet girl, I adore her even when she's making me crazy.
I need some suggestions for developmental toys. Preferably of the inexpensive variety. This is the problem with having her birthday and Christmas so close together. She got some great stuff for both, then had a big developmental growth spurt the minute she turned 14 months and POOF, she's doing all new things I never saw coming. If I had realized what all she'd be doing by mid-January, I would have shopped differently for the holidays. Next year I'll know better. Meanwhile she LOVES playing outside and LOVES being challenged more and requires more structured play much of the time. Over the weekend I did some researched and subscribed to 8 or 9 new blogs (685 new posts...) related to developmental activities for little folks. I got some cool ideas and have an idea about some things to plan in advance, but I have to start looking for more new stuff for her to play with!
Along those same lines, I need new travel toys. Before March 17. We're taking another trip. Because driving to Orlando wasn't nutty enough, we just can't stand NOT to make the trip to visit Kaycie's pet Lauren in South Carolina ASAP, which turns out to be St. Paddy's weekend. I cannot wait to get there! Not so excited about the 10 hour drive. But we've done it once, we can do it again. I just can't find any fun (new) travel toys that might keep Kaycie's interest more than 2.5 minutes. Why can't my kid watch TV like every other toddler on Earth?
Ok, more catching up to come later this week. We're sorta getting into a better routine so maybe I can seriously post more. I won't lie, the holidays were not a good time for me. I had some good days, and had some really, really, really bad days. The holidays have always been like that, but add a growing baby girl in the mix and blogging just wasn't on my radar. January gradually got better, so hopefully we're back on track. Tomorrow I get to go meet baby Maggie, who was born in November, and Thursday I've got a lunch date with one of my BFF's that, weather permitting, will result in some photography opportunities. Looking forward to the rest of my week!
So I'm thinking about moving my blog to WordPress. I've messed around with it a bit and it offers a lot more flexibility but it can be more complicated as well. (Although If I'm only going to post once every 4 months, I guess it won't matter...)
My baby girl has become the biggest helper ever. She helps unload the dishwasher. She wants to do it two or three times a day. Even when it's empty. Or half full of dirty dishes. She wants to load and unload the washer and dryer. By putting dirty clothes in the dryer and clean clothes in the washer. She wants to help fold the laundry too, by unfolding things and tossing them back in the basket. She has her own little broom and likes to sweep. I wish I could get some of her silliness on video but the nanosecond I pick up the video camera she moves like metal to a magnet. But she's such a sweet girl, I adore her even when she's making me crazy.
I need some suggestions for developmental toys. Preferably of the inexpensive variety. This is the problem with having her birthday and Christmas so close together. She got some great stuff for both, then had a big developmental growth spurt the minute she turned 14 months and POOF, she's doing all new things I never saw coming. If I had realized what all she'd be doing by mid-January, I would have shopped differently for the holidays. Next year I'll know better. Meanwhile she LOVES playing outside and LOVES being challenged more and requires more structured play much of the time. Over the weekend I did some researched and subscribed to 8 or 9 new blogs (685 new posts...) related to developmental activities for little folks. I got some cool ideas and have an idea about some things to plan in advance, but I have to start looking for more new stuff for her to play with!
Along those same lines, I need new travel toys. Before March 17. We're taking another trip. Because driving to Orlando wasn't nutty enough, we just can't stand NOT to make the trip to visit Kaycie's pet Lauren in South Carolina ASAP, which turns out to be St. Paddy's weekend. I cannot wait to get there! Not so excited about the 10 hour drive. But we've done it once, we can do it again. I just can't find any fun (new) travel toys that might keep Kaycie's interest more than 2.5 minutes. Why can't my kid watch TV like every other toddler on Earth?
Ok, more catching up to come later this week. We're sorta getting into a better routine so maybe I can seriously post more. I won't lie, the holidays were not a good time for me. I had some good days, and had some really, really, really bad days. The holidays have always been like that, but add a growing baby girl in the mix and blogging just wasn't on my radar. January gradually got better, so hopefully we're back on track. Tomorrow I get to go meet baby Maggie, who was born in November, and Thursday I've got a lunch date with one of my BFF's that, weather permitting, will result in some photography opportunities. Looking forward to the rest of my week!
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