Over the weekend, after Thursday night volleyball and Friday Dad’s night out, I shot family portraits for… everybody. The stats: Thirteen families, 572 clicks, 4.2 GB of images, and a lot of work. Everything turned out great, and I learned a lot. I’m going to bed.
I have always liked this picture I took of Anna in her “clown suit.” She was almost eight months old at the time, and I used this photo as the background on my computer for a long time.
Today, we finally had a little bit of cold weather so that it made sense to put Tara in the same outfit. Jen helped me dig up the same blanket and I took the picture in the same way as the original. Tara is eight and a half months old, and just barely fits in the clown suit.
I have taken and uploaded Tara’s eight month picture, and made a flickr set of all her monthly pictures, and also went back into the archives to fill out all of Anna’s monthly pictures up to her 52-month picture (whew!).
Tara has yet another cold. This morning we went to Anna’s favorite, the Original Pancake House, where Tara behaved, but was mostly zoned the entire time. She achieved a milestone by sneezing out a good three-inch booger on at least two occasions.
Tara also made her first sign, the grasping motion for “milk.” Jen has been showing her the sign when she nurses her, and today I noticed that Tara did the sign when I was carrying her off to have her diaper changed and had her leaned back as we passed Jennifer. After the diaper change, she fussed and again made the sign when we saw Jen. We did signs with Anna, but she didn’t start signing back to us until about 11 months, and had pretty much abandoned the signs by 20 months or so when her verbal vocabulary outpaced her signing vocabulary.
I’ve been back at work for a week, and I guess it’s not so bad. Morale at work is at an all-time low in my 10 years there because of the layoffs looming. I had more then 20,000 messages in my inbox upon my return (most of them were spam and computer-generated notices). After a week of filtering, filing, and taking action, I’m down to under 100 messages to deal with. The uncertainty of upper management’s actions really doesn’t have me all that worried–it’s good work and all, but it is just a job. After two months off, I feel like I have my priorities more in order.
Tara just went in (a little late) for her six-month checkup, and we were surprised to find that she’s still just barely under 20 pounds. I was sure she weighed more1. We also discovered that she had a mild ear infection; she’s so mellow, we didn’t even notice. She has been waking up more at night, what with having had a cold, followed by the ear infection, the transition to day care, and the resultant bad napping mixed in. She’s a trooper, though.
Every day it seems that Anna is becoming more of a “girly girl.” She has ten times as much interest in clothes and accessories than the rest of the family combined. I have no idea where she’s getting it from. I suspect that some day a DNA test will reveal a pink, sparkly, recessive gene has completely taken over Anna’s personality.
Today we join a playground outing to the world’s smallest water park, which is found out in East County. Anna showed no interest for the first half hour or so, then finally ventured in and manage to be the only child to play in the water area without actually getting wet. Thereafter, she spent the rest of the time setting up her towel, laying out, and reading and gossiping with her friends. I am not making this up. Parents of older girls always tell me how bad things get when they become teenagers, but I really think I’m most of the way there. Heck, I’m looking forward to the point that she’ll actually sleep in.
1 One of our playgroup friends explained, “She’s just fluffy.”
The ever-photogenic Tara is spending a lot of time in front of the camera these days. A couple days ago, I took some pictures of Tara in the living room (which should be going out in the mail sometime soon), including this adorable au naturel shot. In just about half an hour, I’m going to be taking her to a photo shoot for an advertising firm; they need baby models for a new baby product. Half of my motivation for doing so is for the possibility of seeing her face on a package in a store somewhere. The other half is curious to see how a “real professional” baby photo shoot works.
The only probably is that Tara turned up with a cold recently, and she should be napping right now but she’s not, so by the time the shoot rolls around she’s probably going to be a pretty cranky baby.
We started Tara on rice cereal yesterday. She’s just short of six months old, and, like Anna, we waited until she was older because there seems to be some evidence that doing so may be linked to a lower incidence of allergies. Since Jen and I both had childhood allergies, we thought it would be worth it to wait1. Tara was totally into it, once we settled exactly who was in control of the spoon. Today, I gave her another serving and let Anna feed her a little bit. We videotaped both feedings, and one day I may even get them posted. Lately it has been really difficult to get any computer time to fiddle with photos. You’ll just have to wait.
Before dinner, Anna was getting Tara to laugh by swooping down and tickling her, then leaning back out of view again. It was pretty funny to see them both cracking up, playing together. I hope it’s only the beginning.
Tonight we did a dry run on Anna’s “wacky hair day” do, and she liked it a lot. Initially I had no idea what I was going to do. Anna inherited Jennifer’s very fine hair, and it’s pretty difficult to manage. I really didn’t want to put any sort of gunk in her hair to hold it in some style, so I just put ten ponytails all over the place. I think it turned out sufficiently wacky–when I was done, Anna ran to the bathroom to look at herself in the mirror and busted out laughing. I’ll have to remember to bring my camera to school tomorrow so I can get a pic of her with her wacky-haired friends.
Today is Tuesday, and the downstairs is still clean; this is four days in a row. There is hope.
1 For the record, Anna currently has no known food allergies.
Tara turned five months old this week. For comparison, I put up Anna’s five months picture as well. Tara seems to be getting even better with age; sleeping well, eating well, and with terrific disposition.
Tara continues to astound with her mild mannered demeanor and reliable sleeping. Also, she seems not to have much interest in sitting, but tolerates being on her tummy and loves to stand. She will stand for several minutes at a time when supported under her arms, or for a shorter time supported at the waist. With her chunky gams, it’s no surprise she does so well. Yes, the photo is doctored.
As of Friday afternoon, I am officially on leave of absence from work for two months. However, between preparing to leave and doing a ton of stuff this past weekend, I have not had a chance to write about anything lately. I’m just going to list off some of this stuff without making the least attempt to be entertaining, so unless you’re a relative or a stalker, just go back and read Twas the Night Before Christmas, from back when I used to be funny.
What is it about September?
We had three birthday party invitations for Saturday, and attended two of them. For the first, our neighbors across the street rented a large bounce-house-style inflatable slide. It looked to be about 20 feet tall, and the kids absolutely loved it. They did laps on it for about 45 minutes, then went to the backyard for cake and presents, then did another round of sliding. Anna and I returned home with just enough time to make lunch to eat in the car on the way to another party. Anna took a while to warm up to the unfamiliar crowd, but was in fine form within about half an hour. Between the roller coaster, the water balloons, and the mai tais, we both had a great time and hardly notice how late it was getting to be until Jennifer called to remind me it was time for
Date Night
Grandma D. has been in town for the last week or so, and watched the girls Saturday night while Jen and I went out to the Del Mar Fair, which is basically a joint meeting of fried-food vendors and food-on-a-stick vendors. We sampled some of each, and also bridged the gap with fried-food-on-a-stick. We also checked out the photography exhibition, where one of my photos would have been displayed were it not for the unreliable non-efforts of White House Custom Color, who dropped my printing order. Maybe next year.
And there was a baseball game too
Sunday, we went to the Padres game vs. the Mariners. This was a playgroup outing with six families, or 24 people total, all getting park passes and camping out on the grass. We actually stayed for the entire game, but didn’t see much of it. Tara and I did go for a little walk and have a Mariners home run land about 20 feet from us, tying the game. The Padres got the lead later in the game, and Grandma D. even got to see Ichiro hit a weak fly to shallow center to end it.
I’m going to start relaxing RIGHT NOW. Really.
This week I have both girls at home because Anna is off of school. All that I need to do today is clean my car, take Grandma to the airport, and add some photos to this blog post. And buy some steaks for my birthday dinner. And cook them. And eat them. That’s it. Really.
I busted out the portable studio today to take a picture of Tara, for comparison’s sake against a studio shot of Anna at three months. I totally missed getting Tara at three months, but better late than never. Usually, when I shoot a bunch of pictures, there’s always a prize of the take; in this case, the prize of the shoot was this gem of the two girls together. Anna jumped in the shot feeling a little jealous; here a little sibling rivalry proved to be a good thing. Other photos:
Yes, I’ll be getting prints made. Yes, you’re probably getting one.
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