August 2012 – Darais Days

No diabetes

So…it turns out I am not Gretchen Rubin, and because I am not Gretchen, I have missed many precious photo opportunities in the past week. Ever since Lydia started taking one nap a day, I make sure (for my sanity) that we either have a play date or go on at least one fun outing per day. And most of the time, I forget my camera. So my treasure trove of happy memories from the last week went largely undocumented, but I did remember my camera a couple times, as demonstrated below.

Also, I don’t have gestational diabetes!!!!!!! Hip, hip, hooray!!!!! I thought I had it because my glucose test was high and I never got to speak to a doctor (long story, but the short story is: I have a toddler and my doctor routinely runs over an hour late), so I left the office thinking I was diabetic. A week later I took a four and a half hour test that showed I process sugar normally!!! I can’t even express how excited that news made me. To celebrate, I had a milkshake from Iceberg.

Okay, and now onto Lydia!

Pom-poms, a Playdate, Thanksgiving Point, and Baby Book Club

I forgot to take pictures of a baby shower I hosted this weekend, but I do have pictures of Lydia holding some of the decorations (after they were taken down) the next day. I guess I am not perfect at this document-your-life-through-photography- thing yet! I feel kind of silly bringing my giant camera on play-dates and to Baby Book Club, but I keep reminding myself that I basically want to BE Gretchen Rubin, and she takes her camera everywhere. So I should too.

August 13 2012 007 — We hung a cluster of tissue pom-poms from the ceiling for the baby shower. Lydia loved playing with them, especially after we took them down.

August 13 2012 016 — On Monday we had a super fun play date with our best play date friends, Misty and Sophia. Lydia calls Sophia “Fia” and has spent the rest of the week telling me all the stuff we did with them. (Well, actually she just says, “Fia, wa-wa, caaah, zooom!, wocko, woof!” which means, “We played with Sophia in the water. Then we played with her car which went “zoom!” and then we played with Rocko (the dog) who goes woof!”)

August 14 and 15 2012 021 — I opened the paper on Tuesday and discovered that Thanksgiving Point, which has a petting zoo, had a special on that day. Lydia loved the petting zoo and tried to climb into the cage with the goats. She thought the baby goats were cats and followed them around excitedly saying, “meow! meow! MEOW!”

August 14 and 15 2012 056 — Basically, I lured Lydia into standing against this wall so I could capture her pigtails. I am TERRIBLE at doing her hair and it always takes me a million tries (with poor Lydia wailing the whole time) to do simple things like put her hair in a ponytail. I consider pigtails super advanced hair styling, and I was SO proud of these.

August 14 and 15 2012 074 — I really feel dumb whipping out my big camera at Baby Book Group, but I did it anyway. Today they had a bubble machine, which Lydia loved. She’s a little shy though, so this shot is of her running back to me because she wanted me to come with her to play with the bubbles. Unfortunately, I was busy taking pictures and so she never got the courage to play with the bubbles herself. So sad!

Adventures

On Friday Abe’s nine year old cousin Isabella came over and we had lots of adventures at Liberty Park! First we fed the ducks, then we explored the splash pad (representing the seven canyons around Salt Lake City–so cool!), and finally we ended up at the playground. Each activity occupied us for over an hour, and by the time we left, I had turned into Liberty Park’s number one fan. I just love living in a child-friendly city that has so many fun, free things for children and parents to do together.

The next day Abe, Lydia and I all attended a family reunion in Mill Creek Canyon, and Lydia made (and ate) her very first smore. Lydia loves watching the July cover video for Martha Stewart Living on my Ipad, which just happens to be a video about making smores. She was excited to make her own after watching Martha do it about a million times!

August 10 2012 015 — Lydia eating the bread we were supposed to feed to the ducks!

August 10 2012 044 — Isabella and Lydia at the splash pad!

August 11 2012 049 — S’mores are messy!

Lydia was struggling to get the hang of the marshmallow at first, but she eventually caught on (with Abe’s help).

August 11 2012 020 — S’mores are messy!

Lydia was struggling to get the hang of the marshmallow at first, but she eventually caught on (with Abe’s help).

I just finished reading The Happiness Project, which was so, so inspiring! Although I found many of the book’s ideas helpful, one idea that is particularly pertinent to this blog is Rubin’s epiphany that happiness comes in an atmosphere of growth. One area that I’ve been saying I want to grow in for years is photography. I am terrible at taking pictures and hate the hassle of having to whip out (not to mention locate) a camera when I’d really rather just enjoy the moment.

But I know that I loved looking at my baby pictures when I was growing up; there’s something about having parents who took time and energy to document your life that feels very reassuring. I always felt so loved when I looked through pictures of my childhood, and although I look at those pictures less and less frequently as time goes by, I still feel comforted knowing those pictures exist.

Now to the obvious: I want to give the same gift to Lydia–and to all of my other future children! So I have recently resolved to “become a treasure trove of happy memories” (also a quote from Rubin–my new idol) and to do a better job of documenting Lydia’s life. I want to get better at taking pictures, and I figure the only way to do that is to actually do a better job of taking them regularly and then lovingly writing captions to accompany them. At one point, I also hope to find/read the manual that goes along with my camera….

So, here goes!