Savvy Toddler Mom

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.  ~Dinah Craik

Today I celebrate ChasingToddlerMom.  It’s her birthday, and what better day to celebrate all that she is, all that she has done, and her goals and dreams for the future.  She is my best friend, and more like me than I can believe, and yet different still!

Here is a woman, a strong, intelligent, determined woman — not to mention beautiful and with excellent taste in fashion — who overcomes daily the struggle of “doing it all.”  She and I want it all… we want to be wives and mothers and homemakers and have careers and hobbies and friends, fulfilling commitments to our husbands, our children, our families, our church, our society, and — of course — ourselves.  We want it all and we want to do it all well.  It is this goal, this attitude towards life, that I love about CTM.

When we go to the gym together, the time flies by as we discuss our days, our challenges, our failures, and our victories.  It is pure therapy.  We haven’t been able to work out together in a couple of weeks, as I have been battling pregnancy exhaustion (twins=tired-squared) and morning sickness… and OH, HOW I’VE MISSED IT!  Not having several hours of good conversation a week is taking its toll on my ability to cope.

Thank you, CTM, for being a true friend.  Thank you for listening to EVERYTHING and helping me get through it all — good times and bad.  Thank you for sharing the last seven (at least I think it’s been seven…) years with me.  Through this job and that job, this foot surgery and that gall bladder surgery, this pregnancy and that pregnancy, not to mention our two crazy boys (and so much more!!!)… you have made life’s challenges easier and funnier.

As you celebrate your birthday today and embark on another year of this adventure we call life, please know that I just love you and love that we are friends.  The next year will be an interesting one for both of us (aren’t they all?) and I am looking forward to sharing it with you.  I am so excited to meet your new little boy (CTM’s 37 weeks pregnant this week!) and finding out what he is all about.  I can’t wait to find out what his birth story is.  I am looking forward to hearing how Little Ro’ grows and adjusts to this addition to your family.  I am so hoping that this baby will be a much easier newborn for you.

Oh, I could go on forever. 

Happy birthday, CTM, and thank you. 

No road is long with good company.  ~Turkish Proverb

Here’s wishing all of you moms out there a happy Mother’s Day.  I hope all your children and/or husbands made you breakfast and gave you thoughtful gifts.  And, if not, at least maybe they did the dishes or let you take a nap.

It’s been a big weekend for us… we chose this weekend to announce our big news.  We are expecting.  Again. 

AND… (are you sitting down?) Not only am I pregnant, but I am pregnant with TWINS.  Yes, two babies.  Surprised?  Guess how we felt.  Wow.  Since at this point most people ask if we were on Clomid or other fertility drug or if we had in vitro, etc… the answer is no, nothing.  It’s either an absolute freak of nature or heredity.  I’m not really sure which is coming in to play more.  At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter.  I’m having twins.

Well… I HOPE I’m going to have twins, at least.  As many of you know, I have had four miscarriages — two in the second trimester.  I am now 10 weeks along, so we have another month until the really scary part (since it’s all a scary part).  I’m due December 9th, but since twins usually come a month early, we are looking at the beginning of November.

As many of you also know, the best idea the doctors have is that I’m having some sort of weird blood clotting issue that they can’t identify.  So… with all the fun of being pregnant, EXTREMELY tired (try, tired-squared), morning sickness, and not being able to breathe, I also get to have twice-daily shots of heparin that my sweet husband injects. SavvyDad has been amazing about giving me the shots since I am just not up to doing it myself yet.  It’s been almost a month now, and at least I’ve stopped hyperventilating when he gets out the syringes.

Let’s see… what else?  You can imagine why I’ve had trouble blogging lately — so much on my mind that I wasn’t ready to share yet.  It’s been such a rollercoaster.  We are hopeful (of course) that everything will go well, but are strangely detached to the point that I think other people think we are unfeeling or something.  So many people that I’ve shared our news with have screamed, shrieked, and cried (including my mother)… and yet we haven’t.  Not yet.

Anyway, that’s my big Mother’s Day news.  SO great to have it out in the open!  I have no idea what the next year holds for my family and me.  I know it’s going to be hard one way or the other.  I’m just hoping that the hard parts will be all to do with too many bottles to make, diapers to change, and not enough sleep because of it.  I will do it with a smile on my face.

Busy, busy… I know I haven’t posted in a while.  It just gets to be a last priority when everything else is going haywire!

I picked up a new client a few weeks ago and started serious work for them on May 1st.  It has been a blast, but very time consuming.  I’ve hired a part-time nanny (I’m sharing with CTM) to make sure the toot doesn’t spend my work time parked in front of the TV.  Man, can it be hard to find good nannies.

I had my sister nanny for me last summer — it was the best!  She loves the toot, the toot loves her.  Alas, she had to go back to college when the summer was over.  I asked if she wanted to work for me again this year, but she declined.

I love having a part-time nanny… it means that I can work when it’s work time and I know the toot is getting attention and interacting with someone (and maybe even learning things he wouldn’t learn from me!)… and then when work time is over, it’s mom-time and I can relax and not feel guilty that I’m not working! 

So, that’s pretty much my life these days… working, having some serious mom-time when I’m not working, and enjoying the fact that spring has FINALLY sprung!  Although, of the 24 bulbs I worked so hard to plant earlier this spring, only five have started to grow.  Is that normal?  I’m wondering if, in my haste, I planted some down too deep and they can’t find their way out.  Who knows.

I’m looking forward to Mother’s Day this weekend.  I’m having my family over for lunch on Sunday — a bit different for us.  SavvyDad has been asking me what I want as a gift and I honestly have no idea.  The only things that spring to mind are not things you can buy… sleeping in? no whining from the toot? no cooking for a week? (I guess you could buy that…)  Any other ideas?  What do you want for Mother’s Day?

ChasingToddlerMom asked SavvyDad for some advice on buying a camera fast enough to catch our little ones in action.  I thought you all would be interested in his response…

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STM told me you’re looking for a new camera. Click here for a side-by-side of the cameras you mentioned.

Given this comment: “One of my very highest priorities is to be able to take a decent picture at a quick shutter speed…” it follows that more important even than the camera body (since all 4 that you mention can operate at ~1/4000s max shutter speeds) is the lens. The lens will determine how fast light can get into the camera.

A cheap lens won’t let enough light in during a 1/4000s shot to get a proper exposure. The camera, anticipating this, will slow down the shutter speed to allow more light in (for correct exposure), but gives your subject time to move while the shutter is open.

Here’s my order of preference of the cameras you suggested:

1) Nikon D60 - allows unlimited continuous (’rapidfire’) shots, great variety of available lenses

2) Canon Rebel XTi - plastic body feels iffy, but Canon also has nice lenses available

3) Sony A200 - Sony is new to the DSLR market. This is their second gen camera

4) Sony A100 - Their first DSLR. You know how when Windows XP first came out it wasn’t too stable? I think the same applies here. Sony’s big selling point is that ‘only their camera body’ has Image Stabilization - which is true, but only ’cause the other cameras put stabilization in the lenses.

Here’s the catch:

1) All 4 of those cameras come with equivalent kit lenses (18-55mm, f/3.5-f/5.6) Not especially great, but adequate.

2) You can tell a good lens by the f-number. An f/2.8 is a nice lens, an f/5.6 isn’t. This number corresponds with the max opening the shutter can have - and the more open the shutter, the more light can get in - this makes for quicker exposures. Nice lenses are “fast.”

3) Fast lenses are expensive (for example: Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 is included, but the Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 is $1200).

4) They include mediocre kit lenses with the camera so you’ll go by their nicer ones. And only Nikon lenses fit on Nikons, only Canon lenses fit on Canons, etc.

Here’s the conclusion:

1) SLRs are flexible, but it requires some know-how and some $$ do take advantage of it.

2) You can get fast cameras without, necessarily, an SLR, but be sure and look for that f/#. I suggest www.dpreview.com/ as a resource.

3) Once you settle on a couple of models, go to a camera store and hold them and try them. This is critical.

4) Pay attention to startup times and to shutter lag - the time from pressing the button to hearing the click. Shutter lag is death. Don’t by a camera that has shutter lag and don’t buy a camera that starts up slowly.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have further questions. I love talking about this stuff.

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If you have camera questions for SavvyDad, please email him at the address on the right side bar.

Happy May Day!