What a Mom Wants

She Gets By With A Little Help From Her Friends

Last Friday, my daughter took her first steps. It was as if we were watching the super bowl and our fave team scored the winning touchdown. There was screaming, clapping, tackling of the poor girl and many, many kisses.

We have noticed that whenever our little bee hangs out with older babies, she picks up something. I am not talking about a cold, a stray toy or a stale goldfish cracker either. I am talking about skills to pay the bills, like eating with her hands, crawling and now, walking.

Back in December, my daughter was hanging out with her good friend Sawyer and he was eating part of his mom's carrot cake muffin (so YUM!) and my daughter was sort of eyeing him the whole time (I was eyeing him, too- I had finished mine). When we got home, she started picking up her cheerios like a champ! I know she was eagle-eyeing him to figure it out. And figure it out, she did.

And then in January, we were hanging out with Tess and her family and she was watching the boy crawl all over the darn place, pulling himself up, holding onto furniture and shaking what his mommy gave him. Well, we got home from our weekend visit and bam! Cruising! And a few weeks later, crawling. Now I am not sure that I can attribute the crawling to Tess' boy completely, but I will give him partial credit. The other portion of the credit goes to my husband because when he saw that our girl was cruising before walking, he was determined to have her crawling before walking, so every evening, he would get on his hands and knees and show her exactly what to do.

And then on Friday, we were hanging out with Sawyer again and that same evening, she took her first steps. Coincidence? I don't think so!

Now, I am not saying that you need to get your kids hitting the milestones A.S.A.P. or anything. I think kids will do what they need to do at their own pace and they are gonna be just fine, but I can't discount the influence of other babies (specifically, ahem, these young men ) in her age group. For some reason, she learns from them and I like that. Its good for her to see them do stuff and I think it builds her confidence in trying to attempt some of these very big-girl things. 

Anyway, I know they say that kids don't really interact or enjoy playing with other kids until the 18-month mark (tell that to my daughter who has been trying to tackle these two boys for the past 4 months), but I think it's a good thing. It's influenced her and honestly, we moms need to get together and commune over snacks and drinks from time to time anyway.

So what's next for this girl? Boys, you tell me!

- Kim 

Say Gouda!

My daughter is almost one year old. I honestly do not know where the time has gone. And then on the other hand it feels like our little family of three has always been skipping down the lane together. Well, a lot has happened in a year. She's rocking four teeth, size 4 diapers, self-feeding and just started cruising around the house. She is growing so fast and we find ourselves looking at each other wanting to put the brakes on.

We know we can't stop time, but we can try to capture as much of these moments as possible. We take a lot of pictures and short videos. But we don't want to go overboard either. So sometimes we just try to be in the moment and enjoy it for what it is.

We use the Canon PowerShot SD900, Digital Elph . It's small, but has a large viewing screen which helps us delete redundant photos before we download them. We definitely don't want to download 20 consecutive shots of our daughter eating her first Cheerio.

Eventually we will spring for a photo printer, but for now, I use Kodak Gallery (www.kodakgallery.com)  for printing and storage. I also use Kodak Gallery to make photo books once a year which include all of our best pictures of family and friends instead of using a traditional photo album. I plan on using it for our daughter's Baby Book, too. There is plenty of room for text and pictures and it's completely reprintable should anything ever happen to it.

I think more important than what technology you buy is your philosophy on taking pictures and video.

When taking pictures there are some simple rules, but here are the one's that peeve me the most. Don't cut people's heads off when taking group photos. Look at the frame of the photo for a split second and check for the annoying partial decapitation. Adjust flash for lighting. Just because it's nighttime, doesn't automatically mean you need the flash. And please, take the bib off!

If you are taking video, make it viewable. In my opinion, videos should be short and purposeful. I recently was subject to some home video watching and it was so shaky and sweeping, it was unwatchable. If you are going to pan from one area to another, do so s l o w l y. And don't try to make something happen because you are taking a video. If you do, you will have a video of your baby staring at you while you say, "Eat the cheerio. Come on, eat the che-e-e-e-erio. You just ate 10 cheerios, e-a-t the ch-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-erio!" With your child, you may want to try to be more candid. My daughter knows what the camera is and so sometimes, we have to sneak a video because if she sees us coming with the camera, she stops what she is doing, smiles and strikes a pose. She also wants to see whatever video or picture we've taken. It's pretty cute. Oh yeah, and pretty annoying when she won't give the camera back.

So have fun! Edit, edit, edit! And don't forget to share your pictures and videos with family and friends! This time isn't going by too quickly only for you - they want to make it last, too.

- Kim