Gavin is innately charming – I promise we haven’t taught him to be that way; it just comes naturally to him. He even knows how to charm his mama. In the mornings, I let him keep his “boppy” (pacifier) and blanket while I change him. Once I’m done, I carry him over to his crib, where it is expected he will throw his blanket and boppy in. Some days, he throws his boppy like it’s a fast ball in a major league game. Other days, he’s slow to the mound. On these days, he’ll turn his face away from me and put his head on my shoulder. He knows how much I love his hugs and figures he can sucker me into keeping his boppy and blanket a little longer. (It always melts my heart, but never results in bringing his boppy to breakfast.)

As I mentioned the other day, Sweets and I bought this kinda sorta expensive bike trailer. To make sure we get our money’s worth, I have insisted that we pick certain days each month to go for family bike rides. As we talked about it a little more, our plan became clear. We’re going to take a break from music class this summer and will use Sunday mornings for our bike rides. Some weeks, we’ll only go for an hour. Other weeks, we will spend a half day or whole day exploring trails in and outside of the city. We’re both stupid excited that this plan is coming together.

Totally unrelated, but totally worth reading? This post. Peter is spot-on with advice he gives women about men.

We are going to a wedding in a couple weeks. I purchased what I thought would be a super cute dress. It’s pink and lacy and just adorably cute. Until I tried it on. And I felt anything but adorable and cute. I felt like a big pink lollipop (more like a big loaf of puffy pink bread). Not what I had in mind. Then, I realized I could rework some things I already have in my closet – a super fun maxi dress plus a cute pink shrug. The only thing that was missing was party shoes (I’m opting out of wearing flip flops to the wedding, which is what I’ve previously worn with this dress). So, I went shopping and found some fun, strappy shoes, plus maybe a couple others. =)

Normally, when I’m shopping online for clothes or shoes, I look for the style I like and then look at the price. If I could search for a specific range of price (i.e., $50-$150), then I would. But, most websites limit those searches to “under $50″, “$50-$100″, etc. … and I find it super annoying to have to specify different ranges to cover my original range. So, I just look at all the dresses. Pick one I like. And then look at the price. And you know what? I’m ALWAYS drawn to the most expensive items. On a clothing site where the average dress price is $100, I always love the $300 dress. On a shoe website, where the average price of shoes is $80, I’m always drawn to the $250 shoes. WTF?!? (Don’t worry, I don’t buy the shoes; but there is a lot of pouting that goes on as a result!)

Apparently, a strip club is trying to open its doors next to a convent. The local news station took a Facebook poll to see whether people feel like it should open or not. While I might personally think strip clubs are seedy, icky places, I generally don’t care that they exist. But, you’ve got to admit, it’s kind of tasteless to pick a location next to a convent. Just like drug dealers should pick corners outside strip clubs, not next to schools; strips clubs should pick venues next to liquor stores and should avoid disrupting nuns at pray.

Speaking of Facebook, how about that shady-ass IPO this week? I love how it comes out that someone within Morgan Stanley (the bank in charge of setting the initial price for the IPO) warned a small group of select clients that the IPO was over-valued and they should check their expectations at the door. Yeah and banks don’t need to be regulated. My ass!

The other day, I saw that my brother was on Gmail Chat and panicked for a moment. Weren’t we supposed to talk over the weekend? Was I supposed to call him? Shit, I totally forgot! So, I opened up a chat window to apologize. I got an LOL as a response. Apparently, I DID CALL and left a message, only he never called back. Mama brain is on fire these days.

But, the mama brain is worth it for times like this: when the weather is good, the kids are often playing in a secured playground around pick-up time at the daycare facility. Gavin will often see us and sort of freak out until one of us picks him up (which takes a few minutes, because we need to be let into a locked gate). The other day when he saw Sweets, SoMi and me, I heard him yell “YAY” as he began booking it across the playground to come meet us at the gate. I’d forget conversations, wedding anniversaries and email passwords if it meant I could keep having moments like that!

They say toddler boys are active and they’re not lying. Gavin is constantly on the move. I haven’t known him to sit still for more than a minute, unless it involves me reading to him, me holding him down or him sleeping. I sometimes look at his similarly aged cousin sitting quietly playing with a doll and think, Oh, that’s what it’s like to have a girl? The other night, all this activity came to a head when Gavin fell while trying to climb on a chair (tears!), fell while trying to climb on a bar stool which resulted in said bar stool falling on top of him (more tears) and a pretty damn major choking incident (about a minute of scare-me-to-death silence while Sweets held him upside down and knocked the hell out of his back, followed by lots of tears from Gavin and me). I know this isn’t the end, either. There will be scrapes and bruises and more tears and broken bones and, well, sometimes I don’t know how parents do it, because it takes a toll on my heart!

Girl and the Goat is a popular Chicago restaurant, started by Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard. If you want to get a reservation there, you need to plan months in advance, like 5 or 6 months in advance for weekend reservations. Over the summer of 2010, I decided that’s where I wanted to go for my birthday. It’d be one last hurrah with Sweets and other friends before Gavin was born. I made a reservation for early December. We all know what happened that year; Gavin arrived early and I wasn’t in a place to go to a celebratory meal the first week after Gavin came home from the NICU. So, we cancelled our reservations. Fast forward to our anniversary last year; my parents got us a gift certificate to Girl and the Goat. Soon after, I made a reservation … for Memorial Day weekend 2012, something like 6 months later. Well, our date night is upon us this weekend and we’re going with the parents of Gavin’s preemie twin. It’s going to be a stellar night!

Do you have any random notes or weekend plans you’d like to share with me?

The other day, a co-worker gave me a line from Seinfeld. I looked at him blankly. He tried to refresh my memory regarding which episode meant. I told him not to bother, because I never watched Seinfeld. Not as in NEVER watched Seinfeld, but I didn’t make it a weekly habit to watch the show for the nine (?) seasons it was on.

This conversation is actually pretty common for me. For every show or fad or trend that I do follow, it feels like there are twelve that I skip. I started to write down how many trends/shows/etc. I’ve skipped and realized it’s a pretty healthy list. Why not share it with you??? Here’s a peak into my very own top 100 (or so) cultural hits I’ve sometimes gladly and other times sadly skipped (I’m pretty sure this list will negate any cool points, if any, I earned with you up until now):

… in alphabetical order …

5 Love Languages, The

24

30 Rock (no to Alec Baldwin; I don’t care if it’s a good show!)

50 Shades

AIM

Amalah

American Idol

Angry Birds

Atkins Diet, The

Automatic Bill Pay

Bachelor/Bachelorette, The (enough is enough!)

Beer, Dark

Beer Bongs

Biographies

Bloggess, The

Blogging What I Eat

Blogging My Workouts

Bossypants

Botox

Branding (my blog)

Break dancing

Bros Icing Bros

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Coconut Water

Coffee (you can probably stop reading now)

Colored Contacts

Crocs

Crossfit

Curry (any dish where it is the main seasoning)

Daisy Dukes

Dancing with the Stars

Danielle Steele

Dawson’s Creek

Deep Fried Twinkies (or anything else deep fried)

Diary of a Whimpy Kid

Donuts (I eat ‘em, but didn’t jump on the “donuts make life into rainbows” bandwagon)

Dooce

Downtown Abbey

e-Readers

Eat, Pray, Love (I tried, but no)

Electric Slide, The

Fake Eyelashes

Finslippy

Foursquare

Fox News

Friends

Garmin

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The

Glee (it’s no Fame)

Gossip Girl

Grey’s Anatomy (I had to quit after Season 1)

Haircut, Justin Bieber

Haircut, Kate Gosselin

Haircut, Rachel (see Friends)

Hairdo, Amy Winehouse

Hangover, The

Hannah Montana

Harry Potter

Hashtag

Housewives (the Desperate kind, still loving on the Real ones – ha!)

Hulu

Hunger Games, The

Hybrid Vehicles

Instagram

Jeggings

Jersey Shore (the show, not the geography)

Jodi Picoult

Keeping up with the Kardashians (just, no)

Lightroom

Lost

Macarena

Martinis

Mary Higgins Clark

Microsoft Explorer

Monk

Mint

Music, Country

MySpace

Nip Slips

Office, The

Photoshop

Pinterest

Pioneer Woman

Plastic Surgery

Poetry

Romance Novels

Safari

Scrubs

Seinfeld

SEO

Sex and the City

Skype

Snuggie

So You Think You Can Dance

Sopranos, The

South Beach Diet

Spotify

Springpad

Star Trek

Stephen King

Sweet Potatoes

Tattoos

Tiger Mom

TOMS (shoes, not of Maine)

True Blood

Tumblr

Twilight

Twin Peaks

Twitter

What to Expect When You’re Expecting

Wine, Red

Words with Friends

X-Files, The

X Factor

Young House Love

Zipcar

Zone Diet, The

Maybe skipping these cultural trends makes me smarter, maybe it leaves me at the back of the pack. Who knows; it’s just a part of who I am. How would you define yourself:

Trend Setter, defined as getting into trends before they’re popular;

Trend Follower, defined as jumping on the bandwagon when trends hit their peak; or

Trend Bucker, defined as someone who tends to skip cultural trends??

What trends have you skipped?

Our weekend got off to an early and sort of rough start. Can you see how red Gavin’s cheeks are (and how sad his eyes look) in the photo? He had a nasty fever on Thursday and Friday with no other symptoms. We think it was related to teething, but it meant he had to stay home from daycare. I took long walks with him both days and worked a bit on Thursday afternoon when he took a monster 4-hour nap. We also went outside in the late afternoons and waited for Sweets to come home from work.

We wound up skipping our soccer class and cancelling Saturday brunch plans, because Gavin had a terrible night of sleep on Friday, meaning he was up from 1am-4am. So, when he finally fell asleep, we wanted to let him sleep as long as his body needed. By the time he woke up at 10am, he was feeling much better.

Sweets and I have been researching bike trailers for Gavin. We tend to buy bigger ticket sporting items from REI, because (a) they do a lot of research for us, so we can trust the products they sell and (b) they have an amazing return policy. We checked out one trailer at an REI store in the city, but it was on the (super) expensive side, so we decided to do a little more research and think about it a bit more before making the purchase.

Then came this weekend, when REI had a massive sale plus an extra 20% off one regularly priced item for members. We decided to travel to a suburban REI to check out another (much less expensive) model that they carry. This is Sweets’ domain, so I let him talk to the sales guy, while I picked out a helmet for Gavin (yes, that’s a big smiley face on his helmet!). After Sweets filled me in on their conversation, I left the decision up to him. We walked away with a new bike trailer, a helmet for Gavin and biking jerseys for Sweets and me.

We then headed out to Sweets’ parents house. Sweets spent a couple hours assembling the trailer. As you can see from the photo above, there are wheels on the front, too. Those wheels remain in the upright position when the trailer is attached to a bike, but can be easily switched down to make the trailer into a stroller (because, you know, we needed a FOURTH stroller to add to our collection!). Don’t let Gavin’s seeming indifference fool you, either. He actually LOVED the trailer, probably because we gave him a bag of Cheerios to eat while we rode.

Speaking of a ride, we went on a great 15-mile ride with Sweets’ parents on Saturday late afternoon. We followed portions of the Illinois Prairie Path and the Great Western Trail before finishing  up our ride at a local eatery for dinner (there’s nothing quite like a post-workout meal!). Although there were a few gaffs to the day—Sweets’ dad collided with another cyclist (thankfully both were OK) and Sweets made the trailer ride over the base to a lamp post (not once, but twice), forcing the trailer to do a wheelie each time (Gavin nervously laughed, but was fine)—overall, the ride was a blast and we look forward to more long rides this summer (let it be noted: since we decided to go with an expensive (to us) model, I told Sweets we are booking specific days each month for bike rides, to make sure we get as much use out of this trailer as possible!).

Sunday was a crazy whirlwind day (because, clearly Saturday was our relaxed day – ha!). We went to a huge neighborhood-wide garage sale looking for one thing (a tricycle with a post at the back, allowing parents to help guide the bike – they retail in the hundreds of dollars, which is ridiculous!) and wound up buying two things: said tricycle ($35) and a small collapsible chair for cookouts and camping ($5). I’d say that was a win!

After walking around the neighborhood garage sale, we raced over to a birthday party for one of the kids in Gavin’s class. They had a woman singing songs and leading activities for the kids, which helped divert Gavin’s attention away from the juice boxes (he’s never had one) and the cake (he doesn’t need it). Me, too! We left the party early, so we could go to Gavin’s music class. Apparently, a very tired Gavin = non-stop Gavin in class. It was a fun class. After lunch, Gavin crashed. Daddy did dishes. And Mama went grocery shopping. Near suppertime, Sweets went to play soccer and I took Gavin on a walk with our neighbor and her daughter to grab an early dinner.

Another weekend and another “where did the time go?!” come Sunday night. Seriously, I need a vacation. Good thing we have a long weekend coming up!!

I have a system when it comes to paying the bills. I pay some bills on the first of the month and others on the 15th, which follows when I get paid. Usually, it takes me a total of five minutes to pay bills; online bill payment is a gem. That is, unless online bill payment isn’t working … for almost 48 hours. This morning, I made a few calls to my bank to find out what was going on. Turns out, there was an upgrade that was taking longer than expected. Two things would’ve made this experience more tolerable:

(a) Instead of landing on a splash page telling me Online Bill Pay is broken (no shit), tell me it’s temporarily unavailable so that my future experiences will be better (a small, but distinguishable difference!); and

(b) Make sure all customer service representatives  know the reason why the system isn’t working and update them with an expected time frame when it’ll be operational again – I can’t tell you how frustrating it is as a customer when the people representing your company don’t know what the hell is going on!

My building is on a relatively quiet residential street. In Chicago, we have an immense alley system – pretty much every home has an alley behind it. Because of our location, we also have an alley next to our building. And, you know what people love to do? Honk their horns as they travel too fast while exiting the alley onto the street. It’s as if honking gives them a right to drive without slowing down for pedestrians or other vehicles that have the right of way. These horn blowers really ruin the peace of our block. The other night, I was in our garage when one of those trucks that collects goodies out of other people’s trash honked the entire way down the alley. As he passed our garage, I yelled “SHUT UP!” He stopped and exited. Despite the slight language barrier, we actually had a nice little conversation. I asked him not to honk. He explained it’s to alert cars as they’re exiting their garages. I explained that it’s loud and bothers people who live in the surrounding building. He smiled, apologized and promised to stop. For the moment, I was pleased, though I’m pretty sure I heard him again the next day.

I’ve whined in this space before about my distaste for Disquis and any other commenting system that makes you jump through hoops just to leave a comment. One of the things I hated about the Disquis system was that it automatically signed up commenters to receive emails of comments left after them. NO THANK YOU. Well, now, apparently, WordPress.com is doing the same damn thing. I don’t want to have to UNCHECK a box or PICK SOMETHING DIFFERENT in a drop-down menu. I want the default to be NO FOLLOW-UP and then I can check the box or choose the menu item if I want to be more involved. The other day, I logged into my blog email account to find almost 20 emails of follow-up comments. Ummm, NO.

Newspaper overload! Sweets and I aren’t exactly a newspaper family. Up until a year ago or so, we never subscribed to receive a newspaper. Then, we decided it’d be nice to have the Sunday paper for coupons – and even after I ditched that effort, Sweets decided he liked reading it with his morning cups of coffee. Then, we did a favor for a neighbor and they paid us through a weekend subscription to the New York Times. Then, my dad had extra frequent flier miles he was going to lose if he didn’t use them, so he subscribed us to the Wall Street Journal. Let’s get this straight: Monday-Friday Wall Street Journal; Friday – Sunday New York Times; and Sunday Chicago Tribune. On any given day, there is a lot of newspaper in our house, so if anyone is moving and needs some extra cushioning for boxes, find me!

Molars can go to hell. Not mine, because the ones I have serve me well (and the ones I don’t have just don’t exist – seriously!). I’m talking about Gavin’s molars. While he’s become a teething pro over the last 12 teeth – it generally doesn’t bother him, this latest molar is a bitch. He’s been chewing his hand, drooling a ton, refusing to let me brush his teeth and causing him to be a crabby mess. He’s been working on this molar for weeks already. If I knew how much longer he’d have to suffer, I think I’d manage a lot better than this not knowing. C’mon teething gods, just give me a clue!!!

******

I think that’s enough for one day. Care to share any of your grievances come lately?

I’ve been interested in photography pretty much my entire life. When I was a young kid, my dad and grandfather were the photographers in our family. I remember my dad picking creative locations to take photos of my brother and me. One of my favorites is a photo of the two of us holding onto a lamp post in the cobblestone streets of old St. Louis. I remember my grandfather getting our entire family in one shot and making us sit there for what seemed like forever while he fiddled with the settings on his camera. I also remember having debates with him about whether white & black or color was better. (He argued color is best, because it’s how we see life; I argued black & white was best, because it leaves room for the viewer to use their imagination.)

In high school, one of my favorite classes was photography. I loved taking portraits and developing them in the dark room. In college, I was *that* girl who took her camera everywhere. People used to ask if I was afraid to lose it. My secret was I purchased inexpensive cameras, took them everywhere and wasn’t upset when I lost or broke them (the number of great photos I got in return made it worthwhile!). When I upgraded to a digital camera, I stuck with something small enough to keep in my purse at all times. When Sweets and I got married, his gift  to me was a big girl DSLR with lots of bells and whistles, many of which I still don’t know how to use. I have become the photographer of our little family, trying to capture the small and big moments in our lives.

I’ve always wanted to take a photography class. One that teaches me about my camera. Reminds me about things I learned in high school, like f-stop, aperture and ISO. A class that teaches me new things about my camera that I don’t even know about (so, I can’t tell you what those things are here). A teacher who challenges me to become a better photographer through camera settings, use of light and shadows, angle of the camera compared to the subject matter and so on. I know I could learn a lot from a class like that and one day I’m sure I’ll take one (or many!).

You know what other kind of class I could learn from? One that teaches the ins and outs of post-processing through software programs like Photoshop and Lightroom. But, you know what? I’ve never had a desire to take one. Here’s my thing about photography … I’m a purist at heart. I think photos should be mostly, if not completely, the original subject matter, lighting, etc. I’m ok with adjusting the contrast or brightness here and there. But, I know I’m likely in the minority when I say, I really hate to see photos that have been so heavily processed that you can’t tell where the original photo begins. And it’s not even that I can’t appreciate something beautiful when I see it. For me, when a photograph is heavily toyed with post-production, it’s no longer a photograph, but rather a piece of mixed media that uses photography as one of its many layers.

The other week, I was reading an article about creating stunning locations and the purist in me was appalled. First of all, unless you’re in a studio somewhere, you don’t create stunning locations, rather you find beautiful locations in which to photograph. But, more disturbing (to me) was this photographer took a pretty drab, empty lot in her neighborhood that happened to have a small patch with small flowers growing in it and post-produced her photograph until it looked like a sun-laden field of flowers. She claims she enhanced the sun; I say the sun in her shot was almost below the horizon and she added a new sun into her photograph. She layered the flowers to reproduce them in places they hadn’t existed before. She added color to the photograph in places where there was none. She freaking added clouds to the sky to make it look more interesting. Was the final product beautiful? Absolutely, but it wasn’t a photograph by the time she was done; not in my eyes, at least.

If my grandfather was alive today, I wonder what he would think about post-processing photography. He was once amazed at the Internet when I showed him how to use it to buy a book. Makes me wonder if we’d sit on different sides of the photography debate again. What are your thoughts on photography and the prevalent role of post-processing?