Henry started smiling last week and this morning he giggled for the first time – a sound which I am fairly certain could establish peace in the Middle East and cure cancer. 
In other news, here are some things I am reading, pondering, and loving at the moment:
Sometimes Instagram is a dirty comparison game. But other times you encounter feeds that bless your soul, and that’s how I feel about this woman’s posts reminding us to stay awake to love.
I sing a lot of camp songs to Henry, courtesy of my tenure as a 3 time summer camp counselor at Pepperhill Farm camp, where I eagerly plan to send Henry when he is older. Thus, I absolutely loved this article about why summer camp is the perfect vacation. What’s that – you want a picture of camp counselor Hannah? BAM.
Because I promise that in the summer camp universe, it really did make sense to be doing the Soulja Boy dance in a belly dancing costume.
As I posted when Henry was born, I happily had an epidural delivery and it was like MAGIC. I loved this article, which is actually less about epidurals and more about the pain of parenting in general. Also- night nurse. THIS IS A THING? The creepy factor of someone sitting in your home while you slept might just be offset by… sleep… a most valuable and rare commodity.
But then again, this was a good reminder that every time I comfort my baby, I am doing the valuable work of instilling security and teaching attachment skills that will be valuable later in life. Hear me (and the article!) clearly: I am not talking about “Attachment parenting” as a method, but rather about the act of soothing and comforting that exists in all methods.
“Attachment is a simple, elegant articulation of the fact that, yes, we really do need each other, and, yes, what we do in relation to each other matters. And yet we don’t have to get it right all the time, or even most of the time…Maybe all this room for error means we’re wired for forgiveness.”
Emily posted about getting things done with kids, and when I read it I had a serious light-bulb moment about how I should stop doing things when Henry is asleep that I could – by whatever stretch of the imagination and physical skill required – do when he is awake. Why did I need someone else to tell me that? I have started wearing him while I clean my house, fold laundry, and do computer things that only require mouse movements.
One of my summer goals was to print pictures and finally make albums from our first four years of marriage. I’m making slow progress on the albums, but I did print a ton of pictures here and I couldn’t be more pleased. Photo strips of Instagram pics! Cardstock prints of newborn photos! Actual physical photos!
But I could use some recommendations on the best places to design and print albums. I finally have all my pictures selected, but I’m not sure the best place to make them. Any ideas?
Mary (whose blog is my current blog crush, after she took a break and then came back with a new and improved community based blog) is doing a series on self-care and I got to guest post today.
What are your favorite summer recipes that can a) be prepared with minimal hands on time b) can sit for awhile, as dinner sometimes happens when it’s ready these days and sometimes not and c)are healthy and inexpensive. This graced our plates last week and it was pretty tasty and met the above requirements.
Ok, finnneeee. One more picture of Henry, because he is two months old today and I CANNOT EVEN DEAL.
The Art in Life 
1) Love the articles you always find. The epidural one = spot. on. I kind of want to just give that woman a big, fat hug and a cookie. (and you too, for sharing it!)
2) Bookmarking the article on getting things done with kids. We have our baby k’tan ready for action as soon as he makes his debut. Those are all such excellent reminders, and they never are too young to start learning that “magic cleaning fairies” don’t just come and tidy up when we go to bed! I love that.
3) Read your guest post and loved every word of it. And there really is something to be said about curling your hair every once in a while, even if it’s just for fun or no reason at all.
4) Henry. He. is. adorable.He’s so blessed to have you as his mom!
I am ALL about the K’tan! It took me a couple tries to get it on right and Henry correctly in it, but now we are obsessed. It also took him a couple tries to like it, but now he is hooked. It is the perfect fix too for the witching hour.
Artifact Uprising is my all time favorite way to publish photo books. They turn out stunning, like works of art. We did wedding albums for our parents this way and all our vacations for us!
I do love there stuff! Pricey, but stunning albums!
First, Henry is the CUTEST. I’m not really a baby person, but his faces crack me up. I’m really enjoying reading your thoughts on motherhood.
My favorite place to print books is through Blurb.com – they have a million options as far as paper type and binding, you can design it yourself or just drop photos into templates, and the books are really high quality. My family has been using Blurb to make photo books for years. I tried using a few other services after getting groupons, and there is no comparison. It’s fairly affordable, and there’s the option to save your book to go back and print more later (which could be nice with baby pictures for family members).
Another company that I’ve never tried but find really interesting is ZNO (www.zno.com – formerly Artisan State) – these are supposed to be top-notch quality, beautiful thick paper with a lay-flat spine, but I have no idea what the design process is like.
Thanks! I am pretty partial to his goofy expressions. And I will check those out!
Learning to parent is hard, and the community that young parents have these days is a far cry from when I was learning. I remember 18 years ago (yes, my eldest had that birthday this year), my mother wondered why I wasn’t talking to her. I wondered aloud what I was supposed to talk about with a 3 month old sitting in her infant seat while I peeled potatoes. “Everything and anything”, replied my mother, “including why you are peeling potatoes, how you peel potatoes, what colour the potatoes are, and any other seemingly insignificant chore or object she may rest her eyes on.” So I did. And felt like a fool. And I had the most fun chatting with a captive audience that loved every single word I said. One of the saddest things I see these days are babies and small children in strollers with adults who don’t chat with them. How boring and lonely for the little ones.
So true! I babble on to him all day!
I’m partial to Blurb for my photo books. The quality is fantastic and the pricing is reasonable. If you have InDesign you can have complete creative control over design/layouts. Consider waiting for a sale or discount code. The top of the line option is Leather Craftsmen but that is reserved for only the most special photos as it is much pricier.
Thanks- I will check them out! And I am all about making books and saving them in my cart until a sale code comes around! ; )
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