A Mama's Work

There is nothing quite like the reassurance of a new baby learning to smile. It says "I see you!" "I like you!" and "I'm truly human!" all in one little muscle movement. I tried for a couple weeks to get one with the camera before I figured out that I had to walk away for a few minutes, then come back to him, camera in hand. He smiles because he's glad to see me back (I fancy). Awwww...
When I've not been coaxing smiles out of the wee-est member of our family, I'd been busy with my other roles. First, nothing has ever made me feel more like a real mom than this project above. Dorothy refused to put on the ballet recital costume that she will be wearing this coming Saturday because it was itchy. I bribed her to wear it long enough for me to take a cute picture of her, but she wasn't willing to wear it for dress rehearsal or the real deal. So I cut up an old t-shirt and made a full lining for the costume out of the soft knit. Now she's totally happy and the other moms at ballet class are pretending to hate me. And I feel I should be getting the Fixed Recital Costume merit badge.

Another of my "jobs" is less mommyish, and that is the role of household tech support. The hard drive of our 6-year-old desktop crashed last week and I did the totally middle-America thing of driving out to Costco and loading a new one up in my SUV. (If I laugh about it I can still feel edgy, right?) Unfortunately, my hasty purchase did not actually return us to tech status-quo, as the new computer does not recognize the old printer, the old scanner, or the video camera, and it does not have the Lightscribe feature I'm fond of for etching the labels into the front of DVDs. So I've been trying to deal with these issues one at a time, and it's really been cutting into my crafty time, and I think my soul. Oh technology, I can't live with you and I can't live without you...