A Picture’s Worth 1,000 memories

look at THAT FACE!

Having a toddler is much harder than having an infant, especially in the picture taking department. I take so many more photos that have a distinct blur from his movements. Though I’ve just now figured out that he will say “cheese” for photos and will result in a sorta smile on his end.

But we were out in the park the other night, to eat pizza and Doritos with friends, and to enjoy the Seattle sunshine. I managed to capture a few photos that really capture his personality. Like his fearlessness, as he launched himself off the platform and then hung there on the bars. I was far enough away to not be a helicopter parent, but was keeping a keen eye on him. I managed enough time to take this picture, mostly to teach him that sometimes being a daredevil means not getting rescued right away 🙂 He was no worse for wear, despite the side-eye I was getting from some lame brained parents who hover ridiculously around their offspring.

 

He’s a good eater, for everyone but me. Friend Mari brought raspberries, and he gobbled them up. I buy raspberries and he looks like I’m making him eat poop laced garbage.

his expressions are priceless

There really are no words for this last one. His expression is just hilarious here. I’m not sure exactly what he’s trying to tell me…

Date Night? Screw That! Let’s have a date day!

Taking advantage of the fact that a) Boof hasn’t started work yet (9 more days, folks!), b) we’d already paid up for the week on daycare and let’s not ruin Potamus’ excellent attendance record (7 days to be exact AND let’s not ruin his getting used to the schedule) and c) it’s a holiday for us education/government folk, we headed off into the great foggy gray city of Seattle for a fun-filled date day.

Per usual, our date was planned around food, the doughnut shop in Pike Place Market and a groupon at this divey bar for lunch. We arrived at the market BEFORE there was anyone around, which is a first, and we got to see our city through the eyes of a tourist…but, like a backstage tourist at Disneyland where you get to see Mickey without his head on and where they fold the sheets. Because the flowers and produce were set up, but none of the other vendors. BONUS was getting coffee in the first  Starbucks..there was NO line. None. Zip. Zero. Nobody else in the store except us. Which has never happened (hence why I’ve never been in there in the, ahem, 30 years I’ve been alive…also, nobody gives coffee to a baby, so maybe there wasn’t a line when I was a kid, but I don’t remember…).

We walked, and talked, and took photos with my sweet new cell phone camera. Wet met up for lunch with an old co-worker(twice) and friend. And to top of the excellent day, was going to pick Potamus up at daycare/school, only to find him HAPPILY playing and he crawled over with a HUGE smile on his face, instead of his normal I’m-so-happy-I’m-going-to-cry-because-you-might-leave-again face that he normally gives me when I get there. Heartwarming.

Though, I’m pretty plumb tuckered out, and there’s still a few hours left until I get to sleep!

It’s like Christmas…every two years…

Every two years comes the amazing Christmas-like day, where you KNOW you aren’t getting a dumpy sweater or a bag full of socks. No no, you are getting some hot little techie number that sometimes you’ll use to make phone calls. But mostly you’ll hold it and stare at its beauty like Narcissus and play Angry Birds and check what people are eating rightnow. rightrightrightnow. Whatcha doing rightnowdamnitiwannaknowbecauseitsbeenatleast10seconds.

Yup, you know the day. Cell-phone upgrade package day!

The industry is in bed with the devil, but man it feels GOOD. I’ve been hobbling around with my HTC Evo Shift (slidey keyboard fun! yay!), that had been dropper (er, thrown at a wall when Potamus was so upset and I didn’t know what to do) and fixed once, okay, twice, in two years (because one time it randomly stopped letting me hear anyone on the other end of the line). As we head toward home plate we were downright limping. The ringer didn’t work, the SD card was almost full up of cute wittle pictures of babykins and everything just felt…slow..

Boof’s phone crapped out last week and so he went in to his super-stealthy Sprint highschool buddy and learned he could get an upgrade for his phone for CHEAPER than fixing it. WTF, but talk about jealous running through me as I have piddly slow “old” phone and he’s flashing is hip new HTC Evo upgrade. But, I learned that I could get an upgrade, too, and those last two days of waiting before Saturday was exactly like how I felt as a kid waiting for Christmas!

I chose the LG Optimus G, a flashy new phone with…get this…THIRTEEN megapixel camera. Boof was unimpressed, saying “but you have a nice camera that you use all the time.” So? Now I have an awesome tiny point and shoot that also makes phone calls. So, neener neener!

So far I am pretty darn happy. Cool features like photo-password unlock the phone (though not always reliable in poor lighting or with different hairstyles, boo), the camera is awesome (ability to take pictures WHILE filming!), and all the other neat flashy features of smartphones these days. I love a big screen and have found myself reading more of my phone-kindle, just because it’s easier to see than the old one! The one drawback is when I am running and the stopwatch is on, but the phone automatically turns off and so I have to keep logging in to see how long I’ve run. I know I can just change that in the settings, so no biggie. One worry is that I will run out of memory, as it doesn’t have a spot for a micro-SD card…it’s all just built in memory (but 32 gb of it, should be okay!). Might mean I can’t keep 8,000 photos on my phone…but that’s probably a good thing, right?