Ok. A lot of moms have regrets about their kids. I wish I had spent more time with them…I wish I had breastfed for longer… I wish I hadn’t let my mother bully me into feeding solid foods yet… I wish I had read to the baby more…I wish I had made the baby sleep through the night, etc.

I have no such regrets. Other than the c-section which wasn’t exactly anyones fault, I am happy.

I am breastfeeding. I am only one week shy of making it the entire six months. This is amazing and wonderful for me. I’m glad I didn’t give up. I spend a good amount of time with her every day. I haven’t rushed her off to daycare so someone else can raise her. I have taught her to read. I go for walks with her. I snuggle with her, etc.

But, lest you think I’m a perfect mama, I do screw up. She has been getting progressively cranky as the summer goes on, and I was having a hard time figuring it out. One day, I left her in her pajamas, and I discovered, that she was cold. So, I guess I was freezing my baby my letting her run naked in the summer. That is now fixed, and I am glad that the crankiness is over and that I can have a perfect baby again.

There are a lot of changes going on here. I need to write more about them as I post photos because it isn’t all about the photos.

I am taking lots of video, and maybe I will try to figure out how to do a video up here.

Here is the monumental news of the day, Daphne knows the words “fan” and “light”

I was in Jared’s office with her today, and she was looking at the fan. I told her, “Daphne, that is a fan.” After she looked away for a minute, I then got her attention and said, “Daphne, Daphne, where is the fan.” She turned her head and looked directly at the fan.

Just to ensure it wasn’t a fluke, I took her to the bedroom, turned on the light and said, “Daphne, where is the light.” She turned her head and found the light.

I was excited as all heck because that was the first physical manifestation that she actually knew English words!!!!!

I have now repeated many times since then, and she’s got a lot of praise. And, she wins a lot of points in my book for cuteness.

She wants me now, so that makes the end of the post!

Ok. So I like Chinese things as much as the next guy. I can’t turn down a plate of Orange Chicken or broccoli and beef. I don’t know that we have gone so far as to find toxic chemicals in our Chinese food, but this has just gone too far.

Jared and I are starting to become more conscious of things that are coming to the US from China because they seem to have different standards than we do. First it was the million toys that were recalled and now it is toxic rice and now toothpaste.

Check out this article which indicates that yet again, we are being poisoned by China.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/08/14/tainted-toothpaste-took-an-unchecked-route.aspx

Though I refuse to live my life in constant fear, I am going to watch what things I buy from abroad and perhaps buy things from my local market if possible.

Here are some neat high-key photos.

Here are some photos using crazy props!!

I used these extra props to create a neat effect.

Here is an example of a photo shoot that I did of a baby in her bathrobe.

For a very long time, I have had a concept of doing a baby with spaghetti and tomato sauce series. Last night, I just got up the nerve and did it. Daphne had a blast, Jared had a good time, and I was even having a lot of fun too.

The cleanup was kind of crazy, but I enjoy the photos. They don’t exactly meet my concept of what I wanted them to be, but I am pretty happy with them anyway.

Daphne really likes this box, so I thought that I would do a series of her in it. Here is what I came up with. What do you think?

Like I said, I took over 250 photos of Daphne yesterday. I had a heck of a good time. Here she is modeling her bathrobe and chewing on her rubber ducky. Tons of fun.