March 2008

Guerita: Mum, what can I be when I grow up?

Me: You can be whatever you like.

Guerita: Can I be a police?

Rocky: You can be a police officer, if you like. But I’d rather you were something else, like a ….. Captain of Industry.

Guerita: What’s a Captain of Industry?

Me: It’s someone who is in charge. The boss.

Guerita: Oh, you mean a Mother!

In other news, 2 nights of 8 hours sleep does wonders for a tired body. The cold’s almost gone and Chiq’s sleep breakthrough continues. Making sugar cookies also helps keep little fingers occupied.

And THAT room now looks like this

It was a four person job although the littlest one was not a whole lot of help. More like trying to stay one step ahead of her most of the time. We’re now on a playroom blitz, trying to enforce the rule that one box get packed away before the next one is opened. We’ll see how long that lasts!

And just because all I seem to be doing these days is take photos, here’s a few more.

Rocky’s not much of a blog reader. He looks at those written by journos, usually about sport, but I don’t count them as real blogs. Often they are just badly researched op-ed pieces. Actually some would say that’s a description of all blog posts.

Anyway, moving right along….

When I come across a blog post or youtube video or email joke I think he’ll like I’ll show it to him. And I can usually tell which ones will make him laugh out loud or even cry with laughter.

This blog post I read today was one of those cry with laughter moments for him. It’s toilet humour, because guys just never grow out of that, do they, but I must admit, I found it hilarious too. Planning Queen linked to one of the older posts on this blog, and through that I found my way to this very funny Dad’s latest offering -

Why I Crop-Dusted a Three-Year-Old

Thanks PQ, and Dad Gone Mad for giving my husband a good old laugh this morning.

Life is making me tired at the moment.

Tired of school holidays. Tired of trying to entertain a 4 year old in weather that’s already too hot to stay outside comfortably for long.

Tired of trying to chase a toddler and 4 year old on a bike around the park. In the heat.

Too tired to enforce the rules I would like to see in this house for TV and snacks.

Tired of changing Guerita’s sheets at 1am after another blood nose and stressing about how to get blood out of the lovingly-handmade-by-Grandma quilt. Bloody dry air.

Tired of having an almost cold that isn’t bad enough to warrant sympathy and a day in bed, but still has me sneezing, headachy and miserable.

Tired of trying to catch a moment’s peace for myself. Tired because the only way to get this is to stay up late. Damn, can’t blame anyone but myself for that.

And the thought of this room makes me feel downright exhausted.

But not too tired to play with my new camera. It’s beautiful!

(Click to see bigger pictures)

Through the fog of fatigue, though, one accidental breakthrough. Too tired to spend the usual 30 minutes pacing, rocking and singing Chiq to sleep twice a day, I resorted to putting her in the cot awake. The first time she cried for all of 10 seconds. Then 5 seconds, now she smiles at me and rolls over to sleep! I definitely didn’t deserve that breakthrough, but I’m not complaining. I’ll enjoy it, as long as it lasts.

It’s here! My new toy arrived yesterday, via Amazon, and a friend visiting her sister in the States. I wasn’t expecting to have an opportunity to get it this quickly, but the Easter break proved to be perfect timing.

So, what did I get?

Canon Digital Rebel XTi 10.1MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens (called a 400D in Australia)

It’s the most popular camera (or one of) on Flickr, Dpreview and Digital Photography School and got good reviews there. It’s also soon to be superseded by a model with 12MP which meant there were some good deals around. I figured going from a 4MP Point & Shoot to a 10MP DSLR would be a big enough jump, I didn’t need to wait a few months and pay a lot more for those extra 2MP. I think I was always going to get a Canon. Most people seem to particularly like one of the big brands and they tend to get hooked on it. I guess you get used to the way they work so it’s easier to just upgrade the same system. Certainly once you’ve got one brand it’s cheaper to stay with it since your lenses and other accessories will probably fit a new camera if you later upgrade it. I briefly considered looking at Pentaxes since we have an old film SLR and the lenses would fit, but they are all manual focus and I don’t think I’m at the stage of wanting to do that yet! I’ve got a few lenses and accessories on my wish list, but might need to save up a bit more for them.

So, there’s lots of buttons, dials and settings to get my head around. I also bought a guide book to go with it, which I’m hoping will get me started on how to use it all.

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi/400D Digital Field Guide by Charlotte K. Lowrie Read more about this book…

Now the pressure’s on to produce quality photos from it! Here’s one of my first attempts. Nothing earth shattering, just me clicking away in the backyard.

I hope you don’t mind sharing my photography journey with me on the blog - with any luck I’ll have a record here of how I’ve improved over the coming months and years…

As I dressed Chiq this morning in an outfit worn by Guerita years before, I was inspired to look back at photos of Guerita at a similar age and in the same clothes. People are constantly commenting on how similar they are. As newborns they were almost identical - I had to put a photo in context to remember which one it was (and equally with my own baby photos).

L - Guerita - aged 18 months
R - Chiq aged (nearly) 15 months