Let me tell you about my newest obsession. It’s called Instagram and it’s a whole new way to spy on people.
I’m basically one of the nosiest people I know. I just like knowing what other people’s lives look like. And that’s the whole idea of the iPhone app, Instagram. It’s just like Twitter, but you post pictures instead of status updates.
Another app that you must have if you’re using Instagram is Diptic. It lets you upload multiple pictures into collages. I use this all the time…
All my pictures lately have been of Gracie. Not because I love her more, but because Bean is a two year old boy and he usually looks like this…
Back to Instagram.
One of my favorite parts about Instagram are Fashion Diaries. People all over Instagram post pictures every day of what they are wearing. They tag them with the #fashiondiaries tag and then you can see everyone else who is posting their outfits. It might sound silly, but it is addicting. I follow people just to see what they are wearing. I tend to dress like a teacher (go figure), so seeing what other regular people out there are wearing gives me some ideas when I’m getting dressed in the mornings.
Sometimes, I even do whole family Fashion Diaries posts. This was one Sunday on our way to church…
So, to summarize our lesson for today, students:
1) Get Instagram
2) Become my friend (my user name is marriageconfessions)
3) Get Diptic
4) Take a picture of what you’re wearing (not in the creepy way…)
5) Post with the #fashiondiaries hash tag
6) GO ON WITH YOUR HAPPY, NOSY SELF!!!
I have a notoriously bad memory. My sister says she does, too, and so we think it’s a genetic thing. Which explains why I often make plans with my mom and sister, but then we all forget we had plans.
It’s not just that I forget things like plans, I have forgotten whole chunks of my life for no apparent reason. I can’t remember anything about high school, for instance. I know I had a great time and that I had some really fun friends, but I can’t remember any details or stories. I can barely even remember college. I remember the same two or three exceptionally funny stories that always get retold around college friends, but that’s about it.
Sometimes I get bummed that I can’t remember anything from really great times in my life, but for the most part, I’m pretty happy with my in-the-moment mindset.
This weekend, though, the weather cooled off a bit so we opened the windows for the first time all year and a vivid memory from my childhood came over me. I had just changed Gracie and put her in a fresh, clean onesie. She was full and happy and sleepy, and as the breeze blew through her nursery and she drifted off to sleep, I distinctly remembered that same feeling when I was younger. I remembered my mom putting me down for a nap on hot afternoons with the windows open and the breeze blowing when I was probably about Bean’s age. I remember the feeling of laying there and hearing other neighborhood kids playing outside or family talking in other parts of our house. It was such a peaceful and content way to fall asleep.
The same thing happens when I go camping. When I lay in the tent and hear people walking by and the gravel crunching under their feet, I think back to when I was growing up. My parents took us camping all the time. I remember being in our little pop-up camper late at night with my sister sleeping next to me, listening to my parents talking quietly by the fire, as people walked by on their way to and from the bath house. To this day, the sound of people walking on gravel will make me stop and smile. It was – and still is – one of the most relaxing, comforting sounds in the whole world.
I remember the feeling of waking up sick in the middle of the night when I was younger, too. I’d be hot and sweaty from a fever and suddenly my mom would seem to appear out of nowhere with a cool washcloth. She’d pull my hair up and lay that cold washcloth on my neck. I don’t remember a specific time I was sick, but I vividly remember that feeling of my mom making me feel better.
Sometimes, I catch myself doing things for my babies and distinctly remembering the feeling I had when that same thing was done for me as a kid. This past weekend when I laid Gracie down and that breeze blew in, I stood there for a minute or two breathing it in, both remembering my own childhood and appreciating the one that my babies are living.
I’m glad that those memories of peacefulness and comfort and love that my parents gave to me are stronger than my very forgetful memory.
Though, on the plus side, I have found a forgetful memory often blocks low points in your past, too…
04Oct
Tonight we had spaghetti for dinner. It’s a crowd pleaser at my house. I cut Bean’s noodles up really small so he can use his spoon to eat it and it’s one of his favorites. But tonight, he did something weird.
I mean weirder than usual.
For him.
Cause he’s a pretty weird dude on a normal day.
Tonight, he put a big bite into his mouth and then he put his face down almost into his bowl and he spit the whole mouthful out! I was so shocked that I gasped.
“Bean!” I said sternly. “We do NOT spit out our food. You need to be a nice boy at the dinner table.”
“Sawy, Mom,” he said.
So he picked up his spoon, shoveled a big mouthful in, and then, once again, put his face down near his bowl and spit everything out!
“MICHAEL!” I shouted. “That is NOT how we eat! No, sir. One more time and you will have to sit in time out.”
“Mom!” he whined, saying some words I couldn’t understand because he was so upset. Then, he pointed straight at Chris and said clear as a bell, “Daddy did it!”
And at that exact moment, I turned to my husband just in time to see him put a big bite of spaghetti in his mouth, bend down low to his plate, and bite a mouthful of noodles, sending them falling back down to the plate.
It looked exactly like he was spitting them out.
I kicked Chris under the table.
“Ow!” Chris whined. “What’d I do?”
“Quit eating your spaghetti like an animal!” I whispered.
“I don’t know how else to eat it!” he whispered back.
Then, I hung my head in shame because I married a person who thinks spaghetti has to be attacked by his teeth instead of twirled on a spoon.
Then, I turned to Bean and explained that Daddy wasn’t spitting his food out, he was just biting the noodles. For the rest of the meal, Bean would put a bite of spaghetti into his mouth, put his head down next to his bowl, and then chew and swallow.
If he ends up being one of those weird kids who touches food to his chin or has to sniff everything twice before he can eat it, it will totally be Chris’s fault.
04Oct
This weekend, Gracie checked another milestone off her chart.
She now sits.
(sigh)
Damn.
When Bean was a big lump of baby fat, I couldn’t wait for him to hit milestones. Rolling over? DONE IT! Sitting up? BAM! Eating solid food? WHAT UP!
But my Graciekins? When she hits a milestone, my womb cries out, “STOP GROWING, PUFFALUMP!”
I think it’s because she’s our last baby and I know that I’ll never get that first back again. Cause it’d just be weird if I started celebrating other people’s kid’s milestones, right?
So, Gracie can sit.
Woop-ti-do.
You know what else she can do? She can snuggle with me right before she goes to sleep. And she can hold her hands up to me when she wants me to pick her up. And she can chew on my finger and babble when she’s bored.
Cause she’s my baby love. No matter what milestone she hits.
