My Little Einstein

Adam loves the cartoon Little Einsteins. It's been on for only a few months but we've seen every episode several times. It's by the creators of Baby Einstein, which we used to abuse often. Adam particularly loved Baby Mozart and would watch the thing over and over and over and over. I guess the makers of the Baby Einstein series decided to capitalize on their popularity with parents who, no doubt, think they are doing something good for their kids by letting them watch something with the name "Einstein" in it.

It's true, the name does have some appeal to me. "If I let Adam watch this, he too will grasp the concept laws of physics", I reason. Little Einsteins is a cute cartoon, though. The four characters go on little adventures and introduce children to famous paintings and classical music and it is, visually, a pretty cartoon.

A few weeks ago Adam started calling his Little People by the names of the Little Einsteins. The funny thing is, they do kind of resemble the Einsteins (except for June as you will see). Then he decided that they needed to go everywhere with him. And if one was missing we had to find it. If I couldn't find it, I had to concoct a story about where that particular Einstein went. They went in the bath with him, had to be dried off like him, and even had to be covered up in their own blanket when they went to bed with him.

Here are Adam's Einsteins. From left to right: Leo, Annie, June, and Quincy.


Here are the actual Little Einsteins. You can probably work out who is who, although June is actually a little brunette girl and not a man with a helmet.

The Family Christmas Picture

I am not a traditionalist by any means. I am also relatively cheap. Combine those two factors with the fact that Adam has a phobia of professional photographers and you get exactly two professionl pictures in Adam's life. Sometimes I fear this makes me a bad mother. I always acknowledge the dozens of pro pictures of their kids at varying ages adorning people's walls and fireplace mantles and silently reflect on my own shame for not having enough of my own. But then I reason that I take enough pictures on my own and they generally come out better than the stiff poses of unhappy children you get in those photography studios.

I am not a good photographer but kids are really easy subjects. Especially when they are your own. All you have to do is follow them around with the camera snapping away and eventually you'll capture something cute or funny or revealing in a way that you had not intended. But I have never been able to get a good Christmas picture. Last year I had a grand scheme and the mental picture I took was fantastic. Two dogs with reindeer antlers and Adam wearing a Santa hat in his Christmas PJ's. It didn't work.

I had failed, in my fantasy, to consider the tired 18 month old who would refuse to wear his santa hat or sit still. Or the dogs attacking one another because they look like aliens with their antlers on. I guess that's how fantasies work, though. Here's what our one picture with all three wiggly little subjects ended up looking like:



It did not go on our Christmas card.

This year I tried again. Only without the dog. I figured I would have my hands full enough with two wiggly babies. To my surprise, they cooperated marvelously and the very first picture I tried to take turned out great. The only problem is that I tried to remove the red eye using the red eye feature of Photoshop. Being the genious that I am, I overdid it, making Adam look like the RCA dog. To further illustrate how intelligent I am, I saved over the original file!

Here's what it looked like:


I tried to fix it Photoshop and ended up making Adam's eye look like it was melting off his face so I scrapped that plan and re-washed the Christmas jammies the next day and tried again. The kids weren't feeling in the holiday spirit.





So I went back to plan A and found a good replacement eye for Adam. I patched it on there and blurred a few lines and it almost came out normal looking.



Notice they still have red eyes. Maybe this is why people hire a professional.

Where to begin?

I took my last final yesterday. Finished up my Christmas shopping today. Our tree is up and decorated and the kids both managed to survive fall quarter without starving to death. Thank goodness DH is such a good father. It's not every dad you could leave your babies home alone with while he cooks dinner, feeds both kids, bathes both kids, and gets them both to bed.

I hope to have my grades by the end of the week. If they aren't good, I won't share them with you. I do know that I got an A in Public Speaking, though. I really didn't want to take the class, but I was actually sad to give my last speech. It was quite a bit of fun.

Now I just need to get motivated to do the maid's work. She's really been slacking off this past month.

Finally Finals

Because it's finals week (it feels like it has been finals week for the past 3 weeks now), I just wanted to give you something to stare at as you wait for my next posts. I know you are all just sitting there hitting "refresh" over and over waiting for my blathering.

Adam and Natasha both holding their beloved "binkies" waiting for the camera to flash so that they can put them back in their mouths.


Adam holding Natasha. I didn't realize he had food all over his face. But they are both smiling at the same time and that almost NEVER happens (well, on film, anyway).


Here Adam is displaying his androgeny by carrying around his "baby" (a little cheap doll I bought him a long time ago whose eyes are supposed to blink, but one is stuck halfway open giving her a slightly crazed look - combined with her messy hair and smudge on her face, she looks rather like a doll of ill repute). Nontheless, not to be too feminine, he is also carrying around a bunch of cars and trucks in the sling. Hey, those cars enjoy a little attachment parenting every now and then (proof that Adam really does take after his dad).


I'll be back next week with lots of posts, I promise!