I’m not sure why it is so unbelievable. Maybe because he still looks so much like a baby, partially because I refuse to dress him like a little boy, the way I had with Francis and partially because more than half the time I refuse to dress him at all. I hate the trashy baby diaper look, but I just cannot bring myself to cover this boy up. I drool over his milky cherub lankiness.
And after six month of having to bundle him up, all summer I’ve been letting him hang loose only throwing a onsie on as we head to the car to pick up F.

I have to admit I have no plans to invite twenty other one year olds over for a party, or buy a lot of toys for this exciting day. Not because Beckett hasn’t earned being prince for the day, but because for me it’s the second first birthday and we already did that for Francis. Unfortunately, Beckett, almost everything you do will be seconds in this house. That’s the problem with being the younger brother. I’m sure soon enough you are going to be annoyed by this. I can already hear you complaining when Francis, sixteen, wants to go hang out with his friends one night and you thirteen want to go with him (maybe it’s even your thirteenth birthday even) and I say no. No way not happening. We’ll go back and forth. But until then you simply accept the fact that ripping down the toilet paper in the bathroom has all happened before and this is why I have to tell you the benefits, many benefits you have from being the second son.

Summer Beckett

Just last night Chris and I were trying to decide who has it better, Francis or Beckett. Luckily so far I think they both have it good, but I’ll say Beckett has it better hands down. Francis taught me how to change a diaper on a baby moving 100 miles an hour in five directions. I’m not sure I’d know how to change out a diaper on a still baby. My style only works in a forward moving direction. Similar to the crocodile hunters method in roping a reptile. I follow and then pounce right at the right moment, usually on the transition from crawl to upright. In that instant I have you out of one, wiped and into another one all cleaned up.
And there’s more, if inheriting a mother better at changing diapers isn’t enough, think of all the other benefits of not being first. With Francis he wasn’t allowed to do any of the fun things Beckett is. Jumping on the couch no way, wondering around half naked. I don’t even get irritated having something hoover under my feet while I’m in the kitchen putting away dishes. I even laugh as the butter knives sneak out of the dishwasher and begin to drum on the machine. Non of these things cause me to drop my shoulders in total defeat on the verge of tears or a nervous breakdown they way the had only a few short years ago. I know it seems totally unfair to stop the beeline to the toilet for a hand wash, but I do have to draw the line somewhere, even if it is all with good intentions. Non of this will matter in a year or two but for now, a whole first year, Beckett’s had it good. Not like an Oprah dog good, but at least as good as Barkis.

Update: Literally five minutes after I finished gloating on my diaper changing abilities I ripped one off of Beck and went to grab a new one. In the few moments it took to get from here to there and back I found Beck playing in a pile of poop. I’m not saying that he ate it but I’m not sure that he didn’t (Chris please don’t read this or I’ll be hearing the word dysentery a hundred times). In the hour that ensued I bathed Beck, disinfected the entire living room and dining room floor on my hands and knees with bottle of “green” cleaner and broke out into a sweat. The resulting nap on Becks part was sweet reward. Mine to follow.

ANTS! I can not tell you how hard I have been working to ward off ants in an un environmentally damaging way…meaning cleaning cleaning cleaning constant sweet sticky juicy crap that gets all over the kitchen and kitchen table. It’s endless and I’ll say after I saw 500 ants on one Cheerio bit I missed on the way out the door we got ant killer to go around the house. Sorry G I had to do it! But after that I learned that ants will not cross a line of baking soda. There you go. I’m not saying it will rid your life of ants but I would have tried more baking soda before ant killer had I known it might work. It does. The ants will not go through the baking soda. Although they will just walk around? Not perfect but helpful.

Two…
High blood pressure? Don’t ask me how I know this one (because it’s personal), but if you do not want to take pharmaceuticals or other meds try hibiscus tea. Suppose to help drop your blood pressure up to 15 points. Worth a shot.

And finally a bad mother moment I recognized today. Meaning I have bad mother moments daily, but would rather not talk about them. Today however I’m not embarrassed to admit I took Beckett to Five Guys for lunch and feed him french fries and hamburger. And that’s all I have to say about that.

This weekend we go to the derby races and I’m not sure how that will be, but any new summer thing sounds good. Sounds like BBQ.

Somewhere in here with all the excitement (broken email and bareback babies) I decided, in what must have been a combination of hot (as in it was 107º yesterday) and confused (running after Bex from one room to the next) to begin training for a run. I haven’t run since high school regularly and back then I hated it. But what I’ve figured out recently with two boy’s, all of the summer things that use to feel like chores – summer reading, grocery shopping (alone), long dreadful runs – are now total breaks. These are reasons people go to the spa for a month. So in hope for finding some peace this summer I’m training? wtf. and I’m writing it here so I don’t back out of the Princes Half Marathon at Disney. Which leads me to the dilemma.

I hate Disney World. I grew up in Florida and have probably been to Disney 500 times, no exaggeration. If you calculate every weekend for three years that is 52 x 3 = 156 pulse about 350 more times before then. Sounds like any kids dream right? It may have been up until 3rd to 5th grade when my mom happened to be dating a man name Bruce, not Bruce Wayne, just Bruce, who happened to live in Orlando. And for about three years I went to Disney every weekend so my mom could visit Bruce whatever his name was. Yes I admit in the beginning going to Disney every weekend was cool, but after the first year I had had enough and by the second year I was totally bored. Bruce ultimately committed suicide. But I don’t think it was directly Disney related. He had other familia issues. But I’m not convinced DISNEY (WINDY) didn’t contribute.

I will die, if I have to go to Disney. I don’t want to see the rides and the characters. I don’t want the plastic pretend dream to creep into my real life B movie. But I’m feeling incredible pressure to indulge my kids. ugh I’m about to be sick… so before I go on let me tell you a proud parent moment I had with Francis about Disney. Francis would love to go to Disney IF he knew anything about the place. My strategy to avoiding Disney conflict has been total prevention. Francis knows very little about Micky Mouse and Princes Leia, I mean Cinderella. I apologize to all of you Mickey collectors (Uncle Jimmy). I’ve chosen to protect my young Francis from this bliss. And I knew I was doing a great job recently when I was at his school during “show and tell”, one of the student proudly presented her princess crown with Mini Mouse ears on it! The class ooohed and aaaahhed (knowing exactly what they were witnessing), while Francis looked at me completely confused. I shrugged like I didn’t know what the f it was.

Personalized Disney Princess Ear Hat with Tiara

An entire level of the food chain has essentially been wiped out. Not to mention the possible contamination of clean drinking water. The Gulf shore water will all be turned black and lack the normal amounts of oxygen produced by sea life.

Anyway, before I photographed my young family, my grandmother photographed hers with a classic Bell + Howell regular 8 movie camera.

Second Birthday Still

There is really nothing unique about her films. They cover birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, recitals, vacations, most of my mom’s first twelve or so years of life events. These movies let me feel like I never missed anything. The family I knew, had experiences before me and each frame gives me a chance to connect to those events.

I had these thirty or so 3 minute films transferred a few years ago to DVD at Spectra. If you ever need to transfer 8mm film to digital they did an amazing job. There are over two hours of footage on one DVD. For my thesis exhibit I included the film with the photographs I had made of my grandparents. After the exhibit the DVD went missing and for four years I have not been able to watch them.

Kitten Still

Beach Over-Exposed

Homework

And then there are nights like these where I think, what could be better? xxxo