f-stop, iso, and a cute baby

I've had this Canon Rebel XS EOS (or whatever) for, like, 2 years and I don't know how to take a picture with it unless it's in fully automatic mode.

Single Dad Laughing's brother is posting weekly about how to work a camera and so I thought I'd try out the f-stop, shutter speed, and iso stuff he wrote about. 

Well, without a tripod, shutter speed was just gonna have to stay what it is - quick.

But I did mess around with the f-stop and iso. I don't know that what I ended up with is any better than what it would have been on full auto, but hey, it's a first step into taking charge of my camera and at least I can say, I did that!

Not quite right

sweet potatoes

A couple days ago, Evan tried sweet potatoes.

I'm not quite sure how he liked them.

fun with water balloons

I was at Walgreens to buy Father's Day cards and they had a whole bunch of water balloons we couldn't resist.  Joshua couldn't wait to try them out.  As soon as we got home, we found a pail, filled up some balloons and he got to popping them.

I wasn't sure how well he'd like them since we weren't playing any games or anything, but he loved them. He popped them by stomping them. He popped them by throwing them. He popped them by squeezing them.

Definitely a hit for a warm afternoon.

watercolor resist

I remember doing something like this back in elementary school.  Thought we'd try it here at home.

First, color a picture using crayons.
Next, use watercolors and paint over it.
Tada! Cool effect.

Joshua really enjoyed it.

party time

Joshua's birthday party is scheduled for August 12th and he has decided upon, surprise, surprise, a Halloween theme.

I think we'll have it at our house.

Ideas for the spooktacular party:
1. Rent a bounce house.  The castle one. Because castles are spooky, you know.
2. Blow up the "family fun" swimming pool I bought a couple weeks ago. Maybe get some dry ice for it. (is it safe for dry ice to be in contact with skin?)

The combination of these two ideas may not be the best.  I can just see slippery bodies running into each other and getting hurt in the bounce house.

3. Water balloons in black, orange, green, purple.
4. Spin art in black, orange, green, purple. The results kind of resemble spider webs.
5. Halloween printables to color with crayon and then watercolor. (Joshua liked the resist artwork we did.)
6. Bubbles.
7. Ghost pinata.
8. Plant your own pumpkin.

Thoughts on food:
1. Pizza (easier than bbq'ing)
2. breadsticks formed in the shape of bones with marinara blood dipping sauce
3. green jello with worms (gummy) and eyeballs (also gummy) in it.
4. cake

Things about Halloween that Joshua likes:
1. witches
2. ghosts
3. zombies
4. mummies
5. pumpkins
6. bats
7. spiders
8. frankenstein
9. werewolves
10. vampires

If anyone reading this has any ideas, post a comment! If you've been to a Halloween party that had something cute, let me know! I am especially lacking in the food area.

my new plan

Since I know that letting Evan cry is really not an option, neither in my room nor Joshua's, and nursing him every time he wakes is just plain exhausting, I have a new plan. 

I don't know how well it will work, but I think it's worth a try.

The plan:
Any wakings prior to midnight will not be met by the boob*.
Any wakings less than 3 hours from the last feed will not be met by the boob*.

*If attempts to calm crying baby are unsuccessful in the first five minutes (which are like a lifetime in the middle of the night), it is okay to offer the boob.

If baby is calm but awake and falls into these categories, only rocking/bouncing and other non-boob techniques shall be used.

(Last night he woke at 1:30=nurse, 2:30=rock/sway, 4:40=nurse and it worked well. And I feel less tired.)

While both nursing and rocking require me to be awake (I can't nurse while laying down), rocking generally only takes a maximum of 10 minutes while nursing is closer to 20 minutes. Why don't I alway rock him, you ask. Well, because it's harder to calm him down that way. Popping the boob in the mouth is like a miracle cure for crying baby.

But's it's a miracle cure that isn't helping us to get sleep around here.

I'm hoping that as we move away from nursing during the night, he'll have less reason to need me when he wakes.  I'm hoping.

how is it possible?

Before Evan, everyone said that if I were to have another, they'd be different, the next one will sleep.

Well, they are different. And the next one sleeps WORSE!

To be fair to Joshua, once he figured out how to go longer than 2 hours, he was going 10-12 hours at night. That started at about 3.5 months and lasted about 2 months. Then he got sick and we had to do breathing treatments all day and all night. And that lasted, like, 9 months. We had to "ferberize" him on multiple occasions (the revised waiting approach, not just cry-it-out). We've had good and bad patches. Right now (like, for the past month or so) he has regularly been sleeping from bedtime until morning with no calls for me. Most nights. Not all.

And then there's Evan. He was so quick to go from nursing every 2 hours to 3-4 hours at night, I was sure people were right and I had a sleeper. But then, he reverted back to waking every couple hours. He's nearing 6 months and last night was up 4 times.

I've read a lot of books on sleep. A LOT. Ferber, Sears, Brazelton, Babywise, No-Cry Sleep Solution, and on and on. There is no real answer. Ferberizing isn't really an option since Evan doesn't have his own room, and so I "parent" back to sleep (nurse, rock, bounce, sssshhh). And I'm wearing thin.

Sorry to post about sleep again, but I'm the kind of person whose outlook on life is quite dependent on sleep. So, it's constantly on my mind.