I'm Pregnant! (It's FB official even)

So this is the first time I've had big news to share since I joined Facebook, and I was a little unclear on the etiquette. How long do we wait after informing immediate family and some friends of the news? Is there a grace period? Is it like the 3-5 days of waiting like calling for a date after getting someone's number?

In the end, it was at least partially dictated by the fact that the Big Sister shirt from Cafe Press arrived in the mail today. I'm sure there's people I should have informed before I told all of Facebook. So, if that's you: I'm sorry. I just don't have a lot of time/energy these days.

Eleanor absolutely refused to let Keith take her picture, until he bribed her with a Reese's peanut butter cup egg (yum). Then she was all smiles! But really, she does seem quite excited about the prospect of being a big sister. She talks to "Little Sib" (since we're not planning on finding out the gender), and rubs my belly every night, telling Little Sib goodnight and that she loves him/her.

I'm also excited, but very intimidated. Being a mother of one has been a challenge. But two?!? I just don't know about that. When I think about how much fun it will be to have two kids .... the scene I imagine always takes place in about 5-7 years, when the kids are potty-trained, reading, and as excited about visiting museums and historical places as I am! (Dream on, all the experienced parents smirk.) I have to confess: I really don't think my strength as a mother is taking care of a newborn. At least the first time around, I found it to be incredibly stressful, and I don't deal well with sleep deprivation. That pretty much says it all about the first 3 months!

But I suppose I'm getting off track here. We're all very excited. Little Sib is due to arrive in early October, which seems far off or just around the corner, depending on my mood. I know that Eleanor will be a wonderful big sister, and I'm sure that all of my fears will be allayed as soon as we meet this amazing child.

Photo Challenge: Purple

The photo challenge this week was another color: purple. (Last time it was white.) Eleanor is a big fan of purple, so we have plenty of purple options around our house. But Keith, of course, is never satisfied with what's around the house. Usually, he's looking for an excuse to get out and go on a photo adventure.

Our adventure took us ... to my parents' house! Crocuses are just starting to bloom around here, and we've seen a lot of purple ones. So Keith took his camera when we went over on Sunday, hoping to get some good, Spring flower pictures. And it was a sunny day, but my parents live just one block from Lake Erie, which means their yard stays cold longer in the Spring, with the cold winds coming off the still-frozen lake. No such crocuses.

Instead, Keith took pictures of the purple flowers my mom had inside the house: living violets, and some cut flowers in a vase. The sunlight on the flowers was nice, but he also had a sneaking suspicion that flowers would be a very common picture for this week's challenge.

So on Tuesday night, as per usual, he was still prowling for that perfect picture. He had an idea for a very abstract picture, to ensure that the focus was truly on the color and not on the object. The necessary ingredients were: a flashlight, decorative purple glass vase filler gems (not sure if that's a real term, but that's what Amazon called them), and a piece of white paper.

It took quite a few attempts for Keith to get the light to really bring out the color of the gems, instead of them looking washed out. The key was that he actually took off the top of the flashlight, and put the gems inside the flashlight, completely covering the light. Then he taped a piece of white paper to the flashlight to catch the reflected light. Here's the set-up:



















And here's the final shot. When choosing it on the computer, he said, "I might not do any processing with this picture! I know I say that every week, but it looks really good as is ...." And, of course, he changed his mind. He darkened the overall image so that everything else really dropped away except the purple. I like that, even if you had no idea what the photo challenge was, there's a good chance that "purple" would be the first word that comes to your mind to describe this image. I also like that it's so different from many other pictures he's taken. He's really utilizing the opportunity to expand his abilities. Next week: Circle!

Student-Inspired Haikus

We were talking about haikus in class the other day, and I watched this one student play with his phone the ENTIRE time. It was very .... inspiring.

Cell phone still in hand,
Despite many warning glares,
He blithely texts on.

---

Is there a teacher
Anywhere in the world, who
Doesn't loathe phones out?

---

He texts with intent,
Warmed by the small screen,
As the rest of the class learns.

---

The flower in bloom
Becomes a butterfly, but
The texter missed it.

Talk Me a Tinkerbell!

Talk me a Tinkerbell!" Eleanor demands from her car seat.

I ignore her for 30 seconds, trying furiously to convey the entire contents of my day to Keith as succinctly as possible.

"Talk me a Tinkerbell!" she bellows. Any hint of begging is gone now, and there's steel in her gaze. She means business.

I sigh, giving up all attempts at normal adult conversation. I turn to her and sing-song, "One morning, Eleanor woke up. And pouf! Who showed up?"

"Tinkerbell!" she cries with a huge grin on her face. And so it begins.

All parents have their own personal parenting tasks that are a little more ... challenging. Some of us are fine with reading stories at bedtime, but can't stand playing tea party. Others are happy to run around outside all day, but get twitchy at the thought of craft projects.

In my opinion, one of the most difficult yet rewarding tasks is storytelling. We have made the parenting decision to limit her exposure to electronic media as much as possible (meaning as much as we can handle) for as long as possible. She didn't watch TV until she was 2 years old. Now, at 2 and a half, she watches some Dora and Sesame Street, and an occasional Mickey Mouse clip on YouTube. On a rough week, when time (or my patience) is particularly short, she watches close to 4 hours of TV. On a better week, like when I was on Spring Break, she watches next to nothing. She doesn't play video games or see movies, except for an occasional family movie night.

I know we'll only be able to keep her away from all of this for so long, and eventually it will intrude into our lives more. But for now, I want her to have an imagination. To make up her own games and characters and interactions. To learn how to focus on one activity, instead of trying to constantly multitask as we all (myself in particular) are so guilty of doing.

And this is how I end up talking Tinkerbells. I talk Tinkerbells in the car on the 10-minute trip to the grocery store (one or two stories, max), or on the 4-hour trip to Kentucky (too many Tinkerbells to count). I talk them in the living room, in the attic playroom, and in her bedroom. I never know when the demand, "Talk a Tinkerbell!" is coming. But I can be certain that there is always one looming on the horizon.

I wish I liked it more. Maybe I need to work on my storytelling style. But for now they're repetitive. She likes to do things in the stories that we already do all the time. We go to her friends' houses, to Grandma's, to the park. She bakes cookies and plays dress-up and goes down the slide. If she has a particular plot device that she decides she likes, whether it be a phrase or activity or character, it finds its way into every Tinkerbell from that point forward, until being replaced by another favorite. She always calls it a "Tinkerbell," but sometimes Tinkerbell is there and sometimes not. Sometimes she brings her fairy friends that Eleanor made up: Ningamell, Ninkamell, and Pinkapell. Sometimes the star is Belle or Grandma or a friend, and sometimes it's all about Eleanor! (But isn't everything though, really?)

I find it very difficult to come up with these stories. Under normal circumstances, I consider myself a creative person. I love to write! But to try and find new and exciting twists to the same story, already told countless times; it's a special challenge. At the end of a long day, when my brain just wants to shut off and watch the TV that I'm working so hard to keep her away from, talking a Tinkerbell is usually the last thing I want to do.

But it's important to me. I was pleasantly surprised on our most recent trip down to Kentucky. We did talk many, many, many Tinkerbells. But it didn't feel like as much work, because Eleanor did a lot more of the talking. She told me who was there and what they were doing and what people/fairies said. It gave me hope that talking so many Tinkerbells really is helping her build her imagination. I look forward to the day when I demand that she "Talk me a Tinkerbell!" and I can just kick back and listen.

Dear Red Minivan

If you're in such a hurry that you must creep forward, 10 feet past the stop line, throughout the red light .... why do you then drive consistently 3-5 miles below the speed limit?

Also, please tell your friend, white sedan, that turn signals are meant to be used prior to sitting in an intersection waiting to turn left. I've already figured it by now, thanks.

Photo Challenge: Past

This week's photo challenge was more on the abstract side. I'm getting the sense that Keith really likes the concrete words, like "curve," and he gets a lot of solid ideas for them. Past? That's a bit harder to pin down.

Or rather, it's hard to convey to complete strangers, without using words. We were down in Kentucky over the weekend. Does he take a picture of something from his own past? Except it probably wouldn't mean anything to most people participating in the Photo Challenge, only resulting in a lot of shrugged shoulders, scratched heads, and quick clicks to the next photo.

But it's hard to find a picture of something clearly Past without being too over the top. I'm always drawn to the idea of triptychs, like 3 pictures of Eleanor, starting from the day she was born to today. But is that cheating? To convey past through multiple images?

In the end, Keith and Eleanor took a trip to an old schoolhouse in our city and snapped a few shots. It's a little more spelled out than some of the other photos, with the sign and all .... but how else to do it? It's a difficult concept to convey in a single image.

Before he added some effects in Photoshop, the light was very flat since it's another cloudy, drizzly night. (You know how I knew it would rain tonight? Because it's Tuesday, and our trash pick-up is on Wednesday. So it seems like it rains every Tuesday night!) He warmed up/deepened the colors and added a blurred effect. I guess technically he "de-colorized" because the whole photo is more brown in tone, but to me that made the color that's there more prominent.

Yes, the picture does make me think of the past. But looking at the sad, naked bush and patchy brown grass really makes me think, "Man, I'm ready for Spring!"

Photo Challenge: Curves

Remember way back when, I talked about how Keith wanted to go out over the weekend to take lots of fun, inspired photos for the Shutterboo weekly photo challenge? And that happened, like once? Most of the time it's a last-minute choice or the weekend is just too busy and it doesn't happen.

But this weekend, it did! I felt crappy on Saturday, so I didn't go. But Keith and Eleanor set out to take some pictures of "curves." They headed downtown first, but for some odd reason there was nowhere to park. So they headed to Keith's more preferred choice: The Frank Gehry building (technically identified as the Peter B. Lewis Building), part of the business school on campus at Case Western Reserve University.

This building has been a definite feature of Cleveland architecture since it was first built over 10 years ago. I saw it a few years ago in the Parker Posey movie The Oh in Ohio and it's pretty hard to miss when you see it in real life. So it was a natural choice for Keith when the subject was "curves."



He took a lot of great shots but, as he discovered once he got home and we started looking at them, the reflection off the metal had a tendency to wash out the colors. So after playing around with the balance for awhile, he just changed it to black and white to maintain a sharp contrast with the sky. There are curves from every angle with this building, but we both liked just how many curves were in this picture, particularly once he cropped it, and how they seemed to shoot off in every direction.

This coming weekend we'll be in Kentucky, so we'll have to see what the next challenge is. Maybe something about bare feet? (I kid, my lovely Kentucky family, I kid!)

NPR Music

I always listen to NPR in the car during the day, which is mostly discussion shows. But lately I've been listening to a lot of NPR music podcasts at home. Cheaper than actually committing to buying a new album, and very eclectic. I've been listening to:

• Over the weekend I was listening to several Adele recordings, her Tiny Desk Concert and a live performance on World Cafe. Her amazing voice felt like a great soundtrack this weekend, while I was feeling sick and watching it rain while I was curled up on the couch.
• Right now I'm listening to Ben Ottewell: A Familiar Voice, On Its Own . One of the lead singers of Gomez, Ottewell has recently put out a solo album, and he gave an interview/concert to WFUV 90.7 in New York.
• I also like the Gomez concert from 2009 on World Cafe, when A New Tide came out.
• The Black Keys concert from All Songs Considered is a favorite, too.
• I told Keith about the All Songs Considered podcast "The '90s Are Back, Or Whatever...." which he listened to and enjoyed .... but I still need to hear it. I think it will bring back some memories!

I'm feeling the need to add more strong female singers to my current playlist. I think KT Tunstall has a new record out, and, based on what I've heard, I want to buy Adele's. Let me know if you have any other suggestions!

Spring Break! ... in Cleveland

Today is my first day of Spring Break, and this is what it looks like. Keep in mind that, as of yesterday afternoon, all of the snow had melted. It had been raining for two straight days and the backyard was a total mudpit.

So, on the plus side, I won't be spending my week off wiping down Beckett twenty times a day and occasionally throwing him in the shower.

But, on the downside, SNOW!! More freakin' snow. It doesn't feel much like Spring. Or look like that. Oh well, no matter what the weather does, it's still a week off from classes. So the "break" part holds true.

The Happiness Project

I've had a lot of ideas swirling around in my brain lately (and clearly, not making it into the blog) and I feel like they are coalescing into The Happiness Project. Or my own quirky version of it.

My Mom has had this book for a while, and apparently I pick it up every time I go over there. My Mom actually bought another copy for me because she saw me eying her copy all the time. It just seems so decadent. A whole entire year spent devoted to finding my own happiness? But when would the grocery shopping get done? And how could I sleep?!? I feel like I spend so much time just trying to make it to the next day that it's hard to imagine devoting much, if any, energy to The Big Picture. I'm stuck looking at my feet instead of down the road.

Which is related to another blog post I started composing in my head and never actually finished. How much time do I spend making myself miserable RIGHT NOW, with the hope/promise that my life will be easier later? And how often is it actually easier later? Or do I just find something else with which to fill the time that I struggled so hard to free up?

So of course, I'm up late to grade papers. And instead, this is the time that I choose to step back and think about The Big Picture. Because I have been miserable lately. I want to be happier about my choices in life and instead I feel the stress levels building again. Last night I dreamed that I had a new job. It was still part-time, in a small office, and was incredibly laid back and low key. No late nights here!

So in this dream, I was explaining to my new co-workers why I quit teaching. Even though I enjoyed it and felt passionate about it, I also thought it was very stressful and didn't feel part-time at all. It felt like I was teaching full-time and taking care of Eleanor full-time and the rest of life—anything else I needed or wanted to do—was fit into the little bits of time left. As I explained the situation to them, it was as if a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. I suddenly realized how light and relieved I felt.

And then I woke up.

And Eleanor woke up, an hour ahead of normal. And then we dove into another frantic, crazy, out-of-control day.

It gets back to what I said before about having margin. I don't really know what I need to do to fix it, but I know something needs to be done. So I'm signing up for the 2011 Happiness Challenge, and hoping desperately it doesn't just become another item on my to-do list.

"I want to look at my options."

Or: random Eleanor stories.

1) Eleanor LOVES the snow. Even now, when the rest of us are sick of it and yearning for Spring, she wants to get bundled up and go make butt prints. (She knows about snow angels, too, but doesn't like those as much as the simple butt print.)

Today, my one weekday off, we got all bundled up and played in the snow on the way to the library. Of course, that meant after about 4 houses, I carried a massive bag of books AND Eleanor the rest of the way to the library ... which was closed. It's just at the end of the street, but still. It's a long way when trudging through snow, carrying a 27-lb child and 20 pounds of books.

2) In the morning, when I try to pick out her clothes, she pushes me aside, flings open the bottom drawers and says, "I want to look at all of my options."

3) Before our failed trek to the library this morning, she was pretending to put her stuffed animal, Loopy, down for a nap. She would get him settled and tell him, "Cry if you need me!" and then run and hide behind the shower curtain. I got to play Loopy, and was supposed to start crying for her as soon as she was hidden.

I took immense pleasure in making all the same requests of Eleanor that she usually makes of me when putting off bedtime. "Loopy" would cry and Eleanor would run over to him, saying, "What's wrong?"

"I need a blanket!" I'd whine.

"I had a bad dream! Hold me!"

"You didn't sing me THREE songs!"

"I need a nose wiper!"

And she'd say, "I'm sorry, Loopy!" Then she'd run and get whatever "he" requested. What a good little Mommy! She was so solicitous with him, I have hope that my complete irritation with these bedtime requests isn't broadcasted to her, and that she just feels loved and cared for.

4) Speaking of her clothing options, she's all about dresses lately. Which is fine, except she keeps trying to pick out light Spring dresses that are totally inappropriate for the 10 feet of snow outside. I know, sweetheart. I want to wear a t-shirt, too. But that's not going to happen for another month or two.

I love that girl!

It's Not Your Problem

Apparently, I've gotten to the point of being a little too comfortable with last-minute lesson plans. I get my lesson plans "mostly" finished, and then forget about them.

Like for Tuesday, I planned the lesson the night before and was set. I got to campus early enough to sit for a few minutes at the adjunct office, check my email and mailbox, print out a few files, and then leisurely wander down the hall in plenty of time for my class. I was so relaxed!

Until I got to class and, looking through my lesson plan about a minute before class started, I saw that I was intending to look at three articles to talk about the research papers. We would work on paraphrasing vs. summarizing vs. using direct quotes, and then the students would need to create a Works Cited entry for their articles. Did I remember to print these articles beforehand, when I was sitting at the computer checking my email? No. The night before I had meant to send myself an email with links to three articles, but apparently hadn't even managed to accomplish that.

While I had the students working on a short literature response, I ran down the hall, found 3 relevant articles, and printed off a few copies of each. I didn't even have a chance to skim the articles so that, when I asked them to summarize the main points, I could be certain that the students had, indeed, focused on the actual main points of the article. Instead, when they told me about the main points, I nodded and smiled.

So anyway, when I was scampering down the hall to belatedly finish my lesson prep, mid-lesson, I passed a guy on a cell phone. All I heard of his conversation was, "Look, that's not your problem. Don't worry about it! I will take care of it."

And I was immediately jealous. I would like many, many things in my life to not be my problem. Granted, shoddy lesson planning should be (and is) my problem. But there's a lot of other issues—like when our house is falling down around our ears or Ohio is thinking about stripping public employees (like teachers) of collective bargaining rights or this country's dependence on fossil fuels and refusal to financially support public transport—that I really wish didn't always feel like my problems to solve.

Is there any way that I can send myself a repeating email? Maybe a reminder on my Google calendar that pops up a few times every week saying, "This is not your problem! Don't worry about it." Or at least stop worrying about it long enough to finish your lesson plans.

Photo Challenge: White

The benefit of the Shutterboo color photo challenge weeks is that they are very concrete. White. Yes, I understand. The hard part, at least this week, is to make it feel interesting and different.

It was hard to find something that focused primarily on white. So often, white is the background color, used to offset something bold and vibrant. And, for the first time in nearly two months, all the snow melted this past weekend! A surefire white picture disappeared. (Although I wasn't too sorry about that.)

Never fear, though. On Sunday evening, we had an ice storm. By Monday morning, everything was covered in a thin, glistening layer of ice. It looked amazing. Even better (in terms of visual appeal, at least), it snowed again Monday night, and Tuesday dawned bright and sunny. So on my drive to work Tuesday, I was surrounded by a winter wonderland. The fresh white snow was reflected by the branches of every tree and bush. The amount of shine and light refraction was awe-inspiring. Everything was covered in a million tiny rainbows.

So of course, it would be nice to get a picture of the unique ice storm. Keith had the same idea:


The only problem is that any picture with more than a minute amount of another color, to me at least, ends up not saying "white." The white becomes background noise to the other color. In this case, the black of the branches stands out just as much as the white.

So instead, Keith chose a more neutral, definitely white-focused picture:


I like that there are blue overtones, and that there's still a focal point with the light and the footprints. So there is some depth to it, but not enough to take the focus away from all the white. The vast whiteness that we've been living in for several months, and that will probably be with us for another month, if not more ....

Our Own Race to the Oscars

As our Valentine's date, we dropped Eleanor off at my parents' house on Sunday afternoon and went to see True Grit. Before the movie, there was a trailer for Water for Elephants.



It started with a dapper old man, quite elderly but with a mischievous glint in his eye. Quickly it became clear that the story would be a flashback to seminal, life-changing event that happened in his youth. I leaned over to Keith and whispered, "Oh, so it's Titanic but with a circus instead of a boat!"

A few weeks ago, when Oscar nominations came out, Keith immediately sent me an email regarding all the Best Picture nominees, and the order in which we could see them. I ignored his email until we were home that night and he asked me about it. I shrugged. I do like movies ... but we tried to do this before and it hardly ever worked out. We couldn't fit in all the Best Picture nominees back in the days when we didn't need a babysitter AND there were only 5 nominees instead of 10.

But here we are, and we've made it a lot further than I thought! We've seen:
1) Toy Story 3
2) True Grit
3) The Social Network
4) Black Swan (I actually took a pass, because I'm a wuss with scary movies. So Keith saw it without me.)
5) The King's Speech
6) 127 Hours (Again, I have to admit I'm squeamish and didn't see this one. Poor Keith!)
7) Inception

Still pending are:
8) The Fighter
9) The Kids Are Alright
10) Winter's Bone

I usually judge my favorites by how much the movies make me think. I really enjoyed The King's Speech and True Grit was pretty good too, but they didn't make me think as much as Inception or The Social Network.

The Kids Are Alright is next up in our Netflix queue, and should arrive soon. That only leaves two (that I plan to see); of course, I have no idea if these are available, in theatres, or what. But we're getting close! We'll see what happens.

Dam(med) Ice! House Repair # 2,463

For those of you wandering over from Facebook, you may not be aware of the fact that our house is a money pit. We moved in June 2006, so not quite 5 years here. In that time, we've spent:
$8,000 new roof and gutters
$12,000 new windows
$13,000 new siding
$1,000 new garage doors
$34,000 TOTAL

In other words, we've spent almost 20% of our house's value (or should I say former value, since it's dropped so much) on additional improvements that we hadn't been planning on. This isn't counting 1) a few jobs less than $1,000 or 2) the optional improvements like adding a deck, patio, landscaping, etc. All of the construction ended last May, and we've been living in relative peace and comfort since then. Until The Ice.

Last week, we were running around shoving towels into window wells because the ice and snow from the roof was melting down behind the gutters and running down the side of the house. Our screens were caulked into place, and didn't have weep holes, so the water was pooling between the screens and windows and seeping under the windows into the house.

After that fiasco, Keith and my dad drilled some holes into the bottom of the screens and Keith also knocked off a lot of the ice around the windows. (We still have towels in the window wells, just in case.) And yet, the home disasters don't stop!

We spent most of the day Sunday at my parents' house. When we got home Sunday night, around 7:30, Eleanor and I came inside. Keith parked the car, and Beckett came inside with him and went straight to the back door to go outside. I think I was the one who let him out and saw that the back porch was falling apart. The railing nearest to the house had somehow broken. What the ....?

"Hey, Keith!" I called. "Come look at this!"

I think Keith is the one who lifted up his head from what was directly in front of him and realized that the damage was a lot more extensive than I'd realized. Looking to the left of the porch, huge blocks of ice and twisted metal (formerly the gutters) littered the ground. Looking up and to the right, we could see that the only remaining section of the gutter on the entire back of the house were the 3-4 feet attached at the corner. Gazing out into the backyard—where Beckett was happily roaming—all of lines from the back of the house (power, cable, phone) were also on the ground. Hmmmm .....

The good news is that everything was still working. I put Eleanor to bed while Keith called the electrical company. They came out later that night to temporarily reattach the power and told us we'd have to call the cable and phone for the other lines, but it would be safe for Beckett to go outside until they came. This is a good thing, because cable said they'd come on Monday and still haven't shown up. The phone company was a bit more realistic, cheerfully telling me that it would all be taken care of by Friday.


I guess this doesn't exactly fit in with the other household projects mentioned earlier, because the insurance company should be picking up the tab. But we still have to go through the process of finding the contractors, scheduling the work, and either getting reimbursed or getting insurance to pay up front.

How much is all of this time and angst worth? I can calculate how much money we've spent on the house, but the stress and worry all of the repairs (and financing of repairs) has brought us is incalculable. I know it's unrealistic to think that we could go an extended amount of time without any minor house repairs. But it would be nice to get to the point where it doesn't feel like the house is falling down around my ears.

Photo Challenge: Fear

This week's Shutterboo photo challenge is fear. One aspect of this week's prompt that I like is how individual the answers can be.

I, personally, choose to write a blog about my life. My daytime job is standing up in front of a class and teaching. All eyes on me—okay, some eyes on me, some closed, and some on their phones. But still, you get the idea. I was the president of my high school drama club.

Keith, on the other hand, immediately thought of public speaking. To him, a podium in front of a large audience and fear are practically the same thing. I offered some other suggestions, but they were received half-heartedly. Keith felt very strongly that fear could best be exemplified by this initial image.

The hardest part of this week's challenge, then, was not choosing the shot. The hardest part was finding a podium to take a picture of.

Finally, tonight Keith and Eleanor took a walk up to the library at the end of the street. Ironically, Keith had to talk to a stranger to make it happen! (Not as bad as public speaking, but still high on his list of things he typically avoids.) Apparently the library's website listed podiums as being available for the meeting rooms. I don't know exactly how this conversation went, but I can imagine it.

Keith asks a librarian, "Excuse me, do you have a podium?"
Librarian, "A podium?"
Keith, "That's right."
Pause.
"Why do you need a podium?"
"Well, I want to take a picture of it." At this point, I picture him with an embarrassed half-smile, feeling more foolish by the second.
Librarian's eyebrows raise. "Take a picture?"
"Yes. For this project I'm working on." He projects seriousness and reliability. NOT creepy or weird. Not at all.
At this point, I imagine the librarian internally shrugging and thinking whatever.

(Keith is looking over my shoulder reading this as I type, and informing me that he didn't feel that awkward. He knew it was weird, but Eleanor was the ace in his pocket. He can't be that weird; he has an adorable little girl with him!)

However the initial conversation went, the librarian got one out of the closet for him, dragged it into the hall, and stood there and watched while he took pictures. Once Keith got the picture loaded onto the computer, he cropped and shadowed and changed it to black and white, which is always so much more menacing.

I do think it's ironic that he approached someone and initiated an awkward conversation to get a good picture to illustrate his greatest fear. What will the next photo challenge inspire him to tackle?

Called Out for Name Calling

It seems to me that the idea of names vs. titles would be a difficult one for toddlers to grasp. Why am I Mommy AND Megan AND Aunt Meg AND The Queen of All She Surveys? These shifting titles, based on different relationships, could be very bewildering.

Eleanor has done a better job than we expected of understanding that we can be all of these things at the same time. We were shocked the first time she called us by name; I had always assumed that she thought my name was "Mommy." And actually, she's even quicker to pick up on these labels than we ever imagined.

A few weeks ago, Keith told me that he asked Eleanor what I called him (meaning: What's his name?). "Jerkface!" she replied. Obviously he had to be lying. I don't call him a jerkface that much. Certainly she would be much more likely to—if not answering with his name—then use an affectionate term such as "sweetheart" or "my love." Right?

This morning he asked her again, "What does Mommy call me?"

Slightly more tactfully this time, she replied, "Jerkface and Keith."

Thanks, Eleanor/Tattletale!

Photo Challenge: Repetition

This week's Shutterboo Photo Challenge is Repetition. Last week, Keith's first 10 ideas or so didn't work out and he ended up taking a picture down the block, late Tuesday evening. This week, he took a more laid-back approach and it seemed to work out for him!

He knew that he already had plans to go to some crazy indoor golfing range with my dad this past weekend. The guys went off to golf while the women hung out at the house, and then we all got together to eat chili and watch the commercials (and some of the Superbowl too, I guess).

Eleanor's very sensible question, upon waking from her nap and hearing that Dad and Grandpa Chuck were golfing, was, "Why are they golfing in the snow?" Indeed, Eleanor.

Keith figured, what was more repetitive than the driving range? So he threw his camera into the bag and off they went.

He got a lot of shots that were well composed, but because of the fluorescent lighting and my dad's lightning fast yet incredibly straight swing, most of them ended up fuzzy. He also took a shot looking down the row of crazy winter golfers, but it was kind of boring, even with cropping. Here's one of the final rejects, including a golf swing:


And here is the shot he ended up with:


I think he boosted the color and contrast. Even though there's not much action, it's implied by the golfer's (my dad's) stance. I also like how the focus is on the bucket of balls, reinforcing that this particular stance is going to be repeated many, many times throughout the afternoon

What to Do? Sunday Morning Edition

We've gotten in the habit, lately, of Keith taking Eleanor out of the house on Sunday mornings so I can get some work done. In theory, it could be anything from cleaning to working out to actual work-related work. In reality, it's always grading and lesson planning, because I'm always behind. Maybe some day that will change .....

But for now, we've had a really hard time finding kid-friendly activities on Sunday before noon. With budget cutbacks, it seems like most local libraries don't open until 1 o'clock on Sundays, and same with many of the museums. During this long, snowy, cold, snowy, gray, snowy winter, going outside isn't always an option.

In case some others have been having the same problems, here's a few of the local activities that we've found:

• The Cleveland Museum of Art is one of the few big museums that's open early (10:00am) on Sundays. And it's free! The parking does cost a few bucks, but I think that Sunday morning it's easy enough to find street parking. This is definitely a good option, and we love free things because—as all parents of toddlers know—there's no predicting how long you'll be able to spend there. So if you don't have any money invested, it's a lot easier to accept leaving after 15 minutes because the child had decided he/she'd rather play with the Playdoh at home. We're also wary of burning Eleanor out on this option, so we probably only do this once a month or so, if that.
  
• The Children's Museum of Cleveland also opens at 10:00am on Sundays. I've heard good things about their activities and that toddlers really enjoy the hands-on opportunities. If it's so great, why haven't I gone? The downside to this option is that it's one of the most expensive ones. Because it's aimed at children, unlike 99% of places, children under 3 are NOT free, but neither are the adults. It's $7/person for everyone 1 year and older. That's not terrible, but what can I say? We're cheap. I think of this one as a planned-ahead activity that we only do once in a great while.
• In good weather or in bad, the Cleveland Metroparks are also a good option. When it's warm enough, we can go hiking or sledding (like we did the other weekend). But even if it's too cold or rainy, there's lots of nature centers, lodges, etc., that have animals, books, and indoor activities to keep Eleanor entertained. All of their Nature Centers open at 9:30am and are, of course, free!
• It's sort of a sub-category of the Metroparks, but there's also the Cleveland Zoo, which opens at 10:00am daily. As I may have mentioned, however, we're "thrifty," and Cuyahoga County residents get into the Zoo for free on Mondays, so we tend to avoid going on the weekends. (The Zoo is normally $7 for adults and $5 for kids 2-11 in the off-season, aka now, and $11 for adults / $8 for kids from April through November.)
• Another option I was considering, but haven't looking into much yet, was joining the local Rec Center. They are open, but it wasn't clear to me what activities there were for parents and toddlers, if any. There's stern warnings against toddlers coming into the workout area with all of the weight and cardio machines. But if they have babysitting, so Eleanor can hang with some peers, I can get in a workout at the same time, AND Keith can sleep in, I think it's a win-win-win situation!

Of course, the flipside is that I should just get myself out of the house. I could get up and head out to the local coffee shop and let Keith and Eleanor have free reign over the house.

If you have any good, kid-friendly suggestions for Sunday mornings I'd be happy to hear them!

Photo Challenge: Sign

This week's Shutterboo Photo Challenge is Sign. Or in our house, the challenge of 1,000 ideas that didn't pan out. You know how some weeks, it's hard to choose which photo you like best because you have several different shots? That was not this week.

When Keith asked for ideas, being the literary-minded person I am, I immediately started thinking of plays on words. What could be a sign of the times? Or a "sign" as in predicting the future? But everything seemed too abstract.

Keith had a particular location in mind that he sees from the train into work. There's "No Dumping" signs, and also tires in trees and plenty of evidence that the signs are not being followed. He liked the idea of juxtaposing the sign against the opposite scene nearby. But, as you can probably guess, it's not the best neighborhood to show up with our fancy Digital SLR and start taking photos.

By the weekend, he hadn't really found anything he liked. On Sunday we went sledding with some friends.

It was Eleanor's first time and she LOVED it. As soon as the sled stopped at the bottom of the hill she'd pipe up, "Again!"

One somewhat unique feature of this sledding hill is that it's actually the 11th tee of a public golf course. Keith took a picture of the sign out front, letting everyone know to head for the 11th tee, but there wasn't much visual interest there.

Much like Keith's contrast of the "No Dumping" and the trash, I really liked the idea of the tee sign juxtaposed with the snow and the sleds. However, more like the sledding sign, I think the angle of the tee sign made it hard to take an interesting picture.


By Tuesday evening, Keith still had nothing. He'd tried taking a few pictures downtown, but didn't get anything he liked. We were heading to a friends' house for dinner, so Keith swung by the small, independent movie theater near our house. Eleanor and I waited in the car for about 3 minutes while Keith hopped out, took 6 pictures, and got back in the car.

And there you have it! The 5th idea, on Tuesday night, finally gave Keith something to work with. Here's the final shot.