Saturday, January 14, 2012

Growing Pangs

Last weekend we stopped swaddling our daughter and began sleep training (I know, it's controversial. It made sense to us, it might not be a good fit for you. I respect that.) all at one go. Due to a variety of boring reasons, we started all of this on an earlier night that we'd originally talked about. This meant that on my last night of putting our daughter to bed all wrapped up like a burrito, I didn't know it was the last night. The next day I had pangs of disappointment over not getting to "say goodbye" to the baby burrito.

It's hard to believe that at only 4.5 months, she's already leaving some stages and entering others. My camera just doesn't seem to be able to capture everything I want it to. Like the way she violently flings her head forward as she sneezes multiple times in a row, and then ends with a sneeze-less "Ah-hmmm." Or the way her eyes get bigger and her face lights up with pure, unadulterated glee right before she eats. Or my recent favorite, the way she puts her hands on my cheeks, closes her eyes, and lets out a little sigh when I lean in for an eskimo kiss.

I'm trying my best to take a moment every day to fully soak in her Josephine-ness of that day, because I know it will be different tomorrow. And then I just have to trust that my memory will do a better job of capturing these moments than an electronic device ever could.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Why is This Vintage?

I love this ad. So much.

(Image found on: CMYBacon)

Yes, it also rules because she's a redhead, but it is so refreshing so see a product advertised to girls without gobs of pink, princesses, pink, sparkles, pink, ruffles, pink, flowers, pink, butterflies, pink, bows, and a little more pink. Unfortunately the ad is decades old.

I happen to like all (okay, most) of the above, but hello moderation. I can't say I'm a big fan of the new line of girl LEGO sets (or all of the super specific LEGO sets for that matter - basic LEGO sets are awesome, and encourage creativity!). I think we're overdoing the explosion of gender-specific toys, clothing, and their corresponding advertising. I don't know what this little girl built, but she's certainly happy about it. Can't we get back to encouraging kids to just be kids?