Rookie Moms

I never thought I’d be great at boy stuff, you know the sports and trucks and stuff, but I’m doing pretty good as a boy mom.  I can get into pretty much anything Julian is interested in and have more fun with it than I ever imagined.  So far.

Recently there’s been a lot of talk from him about good guys and bad guys. Not sure he really knows what he means by this, but he says he’s gonna put the bad guys in jail. So maybe he’s headed for a career in law enforcement.

I took him outside today and asked him to show me a good guy and a bad guy so I could take a picture of each one.  He also posed for me as “excited”, “sleeping”, “mad” and “fwustewated”. It was super fun and he loved looking at the pictures and repeating which emotion he was acting out.

I’m sure there’s something educational about doing this as well, but mostly it just gave us a few minutes to bond and laugh.

Above is the good guy and below is the bad guy.

I see an Oscar nomination in his future.

In my house, we think it is great to take pictures in the same chair each month (or each week!) to really see the baby grow before our eyes. We got in the habit of dressing Holden up and propping him in the big yellow chair. Now that he’s bigger, our challenge is not to snap the photo before he tips over, but to snap the photo before he lunges for the telephone. Ahhh, progress is a beautiful thing!

Other ideas:

1. Put your baby against a solid color sheet on your bed.
2. Snap a picture next to the same stuffed animal each month to show perspective.
3. Photograph tiny hands and feet next to your own hands and feet.

I saw this activity on photojojo this morning and ran right out for bulldog clips to get started.

Unfortunately, my local Office Depot does not carry them in stock (nor does the next one down the street, which I stupidly thought was a different chain… but was the same chain!) so I got these over the top zebra-printed binder clips instead.

As you can see they match the weird zebra theme we have in the office. But that’s a story for another day.

Back to the activity.

Why’s It Cool?

Why would you cover your walls with bulldog clips and hang a bunch of photos? So many reasons. It’s super cheap, it’s ridiculously easy, and it requires practically no skill. Plus it means you can change the photos you have up at any time with practically zero effort.

If you have binder clips around and some fun snapshots that you’re meaning to Do Something With, this project can be done in the span of the tiniest nap.

The instructions on Photojojo for the bulldog clip photo wall give variations like OCD-style and tips for not creasing your photos. Check ‘em out.

If you want to go the high-end route, read Whitney’s instructions for the classier “Family Photo Wall.”

Hey, did you hear? The price of US postage went up. Again! So while I’m busy double-reindeer stamping our late Mother’s Day cards, you can put your favorite photo on real US postage stamps on PhotoStamps.com. For (slightly) more than double the cost of regular stamps, you can make custom photo stamps with your adorable kid’s picture.

There are discounts when you buy 2 or more sheets. It’s an adorable concept for sure and I love to make practice stamps (like this one) with the interface, but the cheapskate in me can’t stomach the prices. I’d rather get real stamps and put kid stickers as a sealer (or inside for re-use).

Has anyone done this and loved it? Or can you help me think of an occasion when paying double for stamps could save me on putting something expensive in the envelope…?

Bye bye cheaper stamps.