camera eye of a 3 year old

Last year we bought our son a kids camera, but the picture quality was poor and the flash was worse. So a few weeks ago Wandering Dad hunted out our old digital camera, charged it up, and gave it to Fire Boy. It has been very interesting to see what catches his eye, and below are a few pictures from the first time we downloaded it.

exploring textures

self and family

lots of feet and shoe shots

lots of pictures of random objects

Other interesting pictures included a monarch butterfly chrysalis waiting to hatch in our garage, a measuring spoon, cloth diapers, play room mess (lots of these), daddy changing diapers, and grass.

Next time we find the camera I'll download it again...

time for pictures

Everyone else in the house is asleep. I should probably be napping since nights have been so rough lately, but I am enjoying a little time to myself instead. It is a hot sunny day and I took a laundry basket of clean diapers out the picnic table to photograph so that I can sell them. Funny thing is, I enjoy taking pictures of diapers. How sad is that - my cloth diaper obsession has progressed to the point where I think they are great photography subjects. I guess it could be worse.

So, I photographed the diapers and then went around the yard and garden taking pictures of flowers and vegetable plants. This is one of the first times since we got our new camera that I have had a chance to take flower pictures, and it was fun. I still get a lot of not-so-great photos, but I think a few turned out very nice. And I even took the camera off auto focus!

I had planned to go back out and weed in the garden for a while, but it's in the 80s and I am a whimp and don't feel like going back out. Last evening I got about 10 feet of one pea row weeded with my daughter in the APLX on my back. Only about 100 feet left to go....of peas....

Oh, and I saw some pea flowers!!! Exciting. Peas are my favorite. They seldom make it in from the garden to be cooked because I sit in the pea row and eat them all.

The potatoes are growing nicely (compare to the planting scene...).

And much of the brocoli has already bolted.

Only one batch of my broccoli is forming propper nice heads this year. Not sure what happened there.
Romain lettuce is lovely. We used one head for salad last night. Steak salad for dinner. Yummm. We eat a lot of salads in the summer.

Some spinach is ready, but it's not doing great this year...need more nitrogen??

Onions look happy.
Carrots are growing and the second batch of beans is up.

And it sounds like the rest of my family is moving, so I'll leave you with a pretty peony.

outside my little world

Today I had lunch with my family and then did a little shopping on my lunch break. I seldom make it to main stream stores any more, but I needed to stop at Target for disposable diapers for my son. I started out embarrassed that I was buying disposable diapers, but by the time I left the store that was the least of my worries. After being astounded to pay 36.5 cents per diaper (that makes nice cloth look pretty cheap, especially considering the resale value of cloth), I went a few isles over to look for straw cups and sippy cups. Colored plastic all round! No stainless here. But I succumbed to the call of the plastic and picked up a nuby straw cup for our daughter and some more “take and toss” (we rewash rewash) straw cups for our son. Sigh. I wish I could ditch the plastic, but somehow that never happens.

Stuff, stuff, and more stuff. Stores full of stuff. Stuff we don’t need. We have our fair share (and then some) of stuff we don’t need, but I mean this is stuff no one needs. Stuff that should never have been made. Do people really buy this stuff? I guess they must or it wouldn’t be here.

I quickly went through the children’s clothing section looking for pants for my son. Nope. They have no pants. Only shorts. I mean, who on earth would need pants when it’s spring. Lows in the lower 40s this weekend, but you shouldn’t need pants, right? Humph. Ok. Maybe not.

Then a cart passed with a crying baby in it. The parents were talking to each other and yelling at an older child and not even looking at the baby. I’m really bothered by this. The made no move to comfort baby or see if there was something baby needed. If my son had been with me he would have said urgently “baby cry! Baby needs mama boob!” Mama boobs are instrumental in making the world better in his mind.

While I was shopping I started hearing things from the next isle over that I would never imagine saying in public, let alone in the children’s section of a store – well actually I wouldn’t ever say them, anywhere. As I passed by on my way to the checkouts I saw an obviously pregnant girl and her boyfriend and his friend picking out a car seat. The girl was silent and the boys were loud, rude, and vulgar. I felt for the girl. I feel for the child. I wanted to give her a hug. I wanted to invite her to our local birth circle of loving and caring women. Maybe I should have? I saw them again at the checkout. The friend loudly boasting what a bad influence he was going to be on the baby. The girl just standing there. What should I have done? When I see things like that it makes a different part of the motherly me surface. I want to mother the mother. I want to show her how things can be different, and things she can do for her baby. I want to make sure she has a healthy pregnancy. I want her to have a joyful birth. I want to tell her about Attachment Parenting. About the joy of wearing your baby. Heck, I’d even give her a carrier. But would it matter? I don’t know. Maybe she is just trying to get by. Trying to survive. Did she want to get pregnant? Does she want to be with this man? How long will she and the baby be with this man? Will he help support them? Will she have breastfeeding support? Probably not. I doubt that she has the support she needs. I doubt that she is prepared for what is to come. An event that can rock even a strong marriage. An event that will completely change her life. What can someone like me do but offer her a smile?

So, I guess this is a negative post. But that shopping trip scared me. Scared me for society. For our world. And it also made me realize both how lucky I am and how much I live in my own little world. My little world where homebirth, cloth diapers, and wool are not atypical. My world where people carry their babies and attend to them if they cry. My world where parents love each other. My world where people grow their food and cook from scratch. My world where kids don’t drink mountain dew while eating ice cream at age 4. My world with no TV an only very select videos. I am very happy that my little world exists and that I’m not alone in it. I have good friends. Friends who give support and guidance. Friends who are crunchier than we are. Friends who do the things I wish I could get it together to do. Friends who are an inspiration to me. I am thankful for my friends and guides and mentors. I am thankful that I know that there is a subculture of crunch out there. We connect at events like our local birth circle and at the farmers market and online communities and blogs. We need each other, and the world needs more crunch I believe.

neat and tidy

I like things tidy. I don't think I'm a complete neat freak anymore (but ask my husband, he may think differently), but clutter gets to me and I like the house to be relatively clean underneath the clutter. We've been having some trouble keeping up with things since I work full time and we have two small spirited children. So - and I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this because it seems like somehow I've failed in my domestic duties - we have hired someone to help with the house cleaning. She same today for the second week, and I'm excited to go home and see the clean house. Last week made such a difference to me. Not only was there no longer a thick layer of dust on my alarm clock, but I was able to relax more this week. I wasn't constantly seeing things and feeling like they were hanging over me. Oh, the window sill is dirty, mentally put that one the list of things to do eventually. The bathroom sink is cruddy - gosh, when will it get cleaned. Etc. Not that I was more of a slob this week, but I didn't feel like the housework was hanging over us and ruining my enjoyment of my time at home. I never imagined that having someone come in to clean would have this effect. I imagined a cleaner house, but I didn't imagine the relief knowing that not only was my house cleaner now, but she is Coming Back, and I don't have to wonder how and when the next batch of cleaning will get done. Wow, great feeling. Now we can focus of energy (or lack there of) on the things that only we can do. Nice.

And last weekend my husband hung up a diaper cabinet above the changing table. Maybe my diaper arrangement isn't quite up to the standards of some who are particularly good at folding, but I thought the colors were pretty. Too bad they are just for pretty now that we've switched to fitteds and wool. :)