Simple Smiles

Why do you think it is that babies smile so freely in their sleep? Is it because they are so perfectly content, so completely happy that they can’t help but unconsciously sigh in pure pleasure and grin one of those huge gummy grins? For some reason we have lost that by the time we reach adulthood. Somewhere between the diapers and designer jeans we have lost that simple happiness that makes us smile while we dream. Maybe it’s because when we are babies all that matters to us is food, a fresh diaper, sleep and loving arms to hold and cuddle us. By the time we grow up we fall asleep worrying about money, and work, and countless other material things. I wish that my happiness was as simple as it was when I was young. Watching my sweet baby girl smile so effortlessly in her sleep has made me want to recapture that simple joy in my own life. It has made me want to to be content with the clothes on my back and the food I eat and the loving arms of my husband to hold and cuddle me. When you really think about it, what else matters anyways?

Here’s to living life in a way that makes us all smile in our sleep!

A Day with Reese

My name is Reese. I’m short, bald, and basically the most awesome thing ever. I have two whole teeth and I like footie pajamas. My life is pretty cool. I gots a Mommy that’s got long hairs for me to pull and a Daddy that I like to spit up on. Then there’s this furry creature that sniffs me sometimes, I haven’t quite figured out what that’s about but he does gots great ears for me to yank on. This is what a day with me looks like!

Genius Baby

Yesterday Reese decided to ring in turning 8 months in a big way. She pushed herself up into a sitting position all by herself, figured out how “fun” it is to get a huge mouthful of baby food and blow it back out in a huge disgusting spray at mommy (for every meal today no less), she discovered how cool her hands are and spent quite a bit of time holding them up and staring at them, and finally-she said “Mama” for the first time. Actually that’s not entirely true, she didn’t SAY “Mama” she shrieked “Mama!” when her well-meaning Daddy was changing her out of her pajamas and into an outfit to help us get out of the house on time in the morning. She was not happy about the whole thing and when she saw me pass by the door she shrieked “Mama!”. It’s awful of me but I love that she wanted me instead of Daddy:).

I’m always surprised by how she seems to be learning and growing at a very slow but steady pace and then all of the sudden, overnight, she comes up with all these amazing milestones. What in the world is she doing in that crib at night? I swear I’m going to creep into her room one of these nights and find her wide awake studying my baby development books!

Reese: “Hmmm, it says here that I’m supposed to be crawling by now… Check! Eating finger foods…Check! Sitting up…Check! Saying “Mama”…Hmm, I’ll have to work on that one tomorrow.”

Nevertheless, my little Reesey-Piece is changing every day and I hate that it is all going so fast. Man, I need to take more pictures, I’ve been slacking lately!

And now, time for a small rant about baby sleep issues…

Today we tried moving Reese from 3 naps a day to 2. I would have done it a long time ago but her afternoon nap just wasn’t long enough so she really needed that 3rd nap, and I couldn’t figure out how to get her to take a longer 2nd nap. I had tried letting her cry and seeing if she would go back to sleep but since she usually has a feeding at 2pm, I could only let her cry for so long before figuring she should be fed. The reason I decided she should probably go down to 2 naps is because a) she’s been taking really short 2nd and 3rd naps and waking up cranky, b) she’s been really cranky and fussy during wake-times, and c) she’s been waking up at 9pm every evening and won’t go back to sleep til I feed her, which I don’t really want to do until 10 or 11pm, otherwise she wakes up too early in the morning. She never used to wake up for the last feeding of the night, I used to have to wake her up, so I don’t really love that she wakes up too early.

So I reworked some feedings and naptimes in my head and today we gave it a try, with huge success I might add! It helped that she totally slept in this morning. First, I pushed back putting her down for her morning nap by a half an hour. Then, I put her down for her afternoon nap a half hour later as well, and I topped her off with some milk first so if she woke up early I would know it wasn’t due to hunger. She did wake up early from that nap, after only about an hour, but I let her cry for awhile and she went back to sleep, and woke up again close to my goal wake-up time. She then played happily in her play area for an HOUR by herself, without a peep except happy noises! Okay, that’s big for her. Usually she’s shrieking after 15 minutes because she wants to be held, or she’s bored, or who knows why else. So maybe before today the naps were the problem. We’ll see. Maybe it’s a fluke. But I am determined to get her sleeping a solid 2 hours at least in the afternoon. She needs it, and so do I! I can’t wait until we have from 3-5 pm when she’s awake and I can hopefully go to the gym and leave her at the daycare! My exercise regiment is seriously lacking these days. Cross our fingers!

*UPDATE*

Today Reese has had two FANTASTIC naps. Which is saying something considering that this morning I was babysitting with her and she had to sleep in an unfamiliar place. Regardless,  Her morning nap was 2 hours and 15 minutes, and her afternoon nap was 2 hours 15 minutes. That’s big! So much better than 3 one-hour naps a day! Not to mention that she woke up from both naps with smiles and happy noises! I think this two-nap thing is just what she needs. I love it when we figure things out, even if it takes a little while to get there:)

Eh? What was that?

I had a problem with my left ear dating back to last week that I thought was just excess earwax. I used drops and my wife patiently flushed it out with warm water multiple times. When the problem persisted, I went in to see an ENT doctor. It turns out that I have “minor to moderate loss of hearing” and it might be permanent. I’m seeing a specialist in a few weeks and will hopefully find out more then.

So talk a bit louder or move around to my right side!

Chocolate Junkie

Hello my name is Meghan, and I’m a chocoholic….

In my quest for a more healthy lifestyle I decided to eliminate some of the more addictive and unhealthy things in my diet. Namely- chocolate. I said back in September I was going to do it and I never really followed through. So here it is. I am on record now as being four days deep in withdrawls. It’s not much, but I hope that in starting with these small steps I can gain the confidence to give up some of the big ones (aka sugar, cheese, oils).

When I was 13 years old I gave up all meat. I didn’t slowly wean myself from it, I gave it up cold turkey(no pun intended:)). One day I came home and at dinner I told my mom I didn’t want a pork chop because I was never eating meat again. She of course tried to argue the benefits of eating meat, and her and my dad finally decided to drop it, saying “it’s just a phase”. Eleven years later and I’m still a vegetarian.

When I was in High School I gave up all soda. I was a dancer and we were told that carbonation was damaging to our endurance and physique. Goodbye soda! I just stopped drinking it, it wasn’t even hard really.

So why is it so hard for me now to give up certain foods? It has been exactly four days without it. I know because I think about it all the time. My body CRAVES it. Last night Mark was eating some cookies and it was so hard to turn it down when he offered me one. I have this internal argument with myself at least 10x a day- “It won’t hurt to just have one little piece”, “No! I can’t. If I have one piece then I will want another and another. It ends now!”, “Come one, no one will know”, “I will know! If I give in now then I will feel like I failed and I will just fall back into my old ways.” And so on, and so on…

I don’t think that chocolate in and of itself is that bad. I never really had a problem with it before. But since I got pregnant it has been the worst addiction for me. I justify a tall glass of chocolate soy milk before noon. I want a handful of chocolate candies after lunch. I always crave something sweet to end dinner with. That is why I decided to give it up all together. Until I can control my cravings to the point where I could just have one piece and call it good, I cannot be trusted to eat chocolate at all.

Maybe if I don’t eat chocolate for long enough the cravings will finally go away. I’m taking things step by step, day by day.

Wow, I seriously sound like a junkie:)

I’m pathetic.

Smugging Our Mug

The founders of SmugMug (my brother and my father) have always had good business sense. Creating a Web-based business is a risky venture, but they kept true to a few principles and it is working out incredibly well. Since SmugMug took no outside investment and is a subscription-based service rather than an ad-based service like so many of our competitors, one important decision was to maintain organic growth.

While most Websites were out looking to get as many users as possible as quickly as possible, SmugMug focused on growing at a natural and sustainable rate. That meant being profitable every year, maintaining fantastic customer support, and not just shooting for the typical definition of Web success: getting bought out by Google.

That often meant that we were overlooked by the press and didn’t garner as much attention from bloggers and journalistic Websites as some of our competitors. That is beginning to change as they are starting to take notice of a photo-sharing Website that is prospering in a world normally dominated by “free” sites.

From Businessweek (1 and 2) to the LATimes, CNET to TechCrunch, USA Today to Entrepeneur.com, SmugMug is finally getting some notice.

Last night I attended an award show put on by TechCrunch called the Crunchies. SmugMug took home the prize for best Web design and the hilarious monkey trophy pictured below:

Adventures in the city that I love

When I was younger my family lived in the San Francisco bay area. I LOVED living here. I loved the weather, trips to Great America, and day excursions to the city for some Boudin’s Sourdough Bread (hey, I was only 9!). I remember when we moved away so my dad could take a job in Albuquerque, NM-I thought to myself “someday I will come back here”. It’s like that children’s book “Miss Rumphius”? I always said that someday I would come back and make my home by the bay.

Well it seems that I am one of those lucky people who get to see their dream come true. I live just 40 miles south of San Francisco. It’s the most amazing feeling to be within a short driving distance of the beach, to be able to take Reese to the park in the middle of January in a light jacket, and to wear sandals all year round. I can’t imagine calling any other place home. Sure, I miss friends and family in Utah, but California is where my heart is. It’s like this incredible romance, my relationship to this place. Sometimes we are on the outs, like when I’m stuck in traffic, or I have to write a rent check that is in the thousands instead of hundreds, or when I miss my family so terribly it’s difficult to breathe. Most of the time we are old friends, and I am completely content. Then every once and awhile I am completely caught off guard with this overwhelming love for this place I call home and I find myself thinking “My goodness, I’m madly in love with this place, and I always will be”.

Today a very close friend invited me to come to the San Francisco Zoo with her and her two kids. I decided to throw the nap schedule out the window for the day and Reese and I joined them. It was so freeing to just go and hope Reese slept in the car and stroller, but if she didn’t, who cares? I think that by getting Reese the sleep she needs most of the time, I am then able to do things like this from time to time and Reese is usually fine and not a complete mess without her naps:)

It was a great day and I had a blast. Reese was perfect, barely making a peep and sleeping in the carseat all the way there and all the way back. Plus, I got to take a bunch of pictures of Elena and her adorable kids. Then, on the drive home I took in the amazing views of the ocean, the San Francisco hills, and the light mist hanging over Half Moon Bay. That’s when it hit me, yet again, how much I love calling the bay area my home. *Sigh*