Blogging Tweets & Facebook Posts: The Internet Collapses Into Itself

One of the things I struggle with as a blogger (even one as unreliable as me) in this ever-connected world is whether or not I should share a particular piece of information via the blog or some other social platform. If I snap a cute picture of LG on my phone, can I write a story about it, or should I just post it to Facebook? If she utters an utterly jaw-dropping non-sequitur in the car, will I remember it to write about later, or should I tweet it immediately?

Granted, social media is my actual job, so it's possible I think about this more than most people.

But the biggest problem with sharing these awesome experiences on Facebook and Twitter is that those platforms are ephemeral. With the blog, I've got a great archive (however spotty) of the weird and wacky things my kid says and does.

So in an effort to collect these recollections in one place, I now present the first blog post dedicated to the random quotes, pictures and stories that have appeared elsewhere. Fair game: My Facebook, Hollie's Facebook and my (languishing) Twitter feed.

1/15/2011 - Matt's Twitter
My daughter and my vehicle inspection were both due in September. Guess which one happened and which one I just got pulled over for.

1/27/2011 - Matt's Twitter
My wife tells me I'm not allowed to tweet about poop. This is not such a tweet. But man, if I was allowed, would I have a crazy tweet!

3/11/2011 - Matt's Twitter
I realize it is unreasonable to expect this every night, but LG just woke up from 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep IN HER CRIB. #happydance

6/6/2011 - Matt's Twitter
LG's third tooth just popped through. If I do my job as a parent correctly, she will never have fewer teeth than this.

7/26/2011 - Matt's Twitter
My baby thinks she's a dog and my dog thinks she's people. In related news I need to babyproof the dog's bowl and dogproof the diaper bag.

9/20/2011 - Matt's Twitter
And the streak is over. On her 373rd day, LG got sick.

12/3/2011 - Matt's Twitter
LG slept on her hair funny last night, such that it looks like she's wearing a Bumpit (TM).

12/12/2011 - Matt's Facebook
Hollie isn't feeling well, and her voice has been giving out from time to time. As I was getting LG out of her carseat, the following conversation transpired.

Hollie: I hope I have what she had (LG was sick last week), so she doesn't get sick.
Me: I don't know. She didn't sound hoarse at all when she was sick.
LG: Neigh! Neigh!

12/14/2011 - Hollie's Facebook
Awesome morning with the little one. We "brushed the teeth" of every toy in the house. This basically consisted of going over to every toy, smacking it in the mouth-area with her old infant toothbrush, and shouting "TEETH!"

12/14/2012 - Matt's Twitter
Apparently my daughter has said "apple" and "teeth" today. I miss being home with her.

12/14/2011 - Hollie's Facebook
Animals with clean mouths: teddy bears, baby dolls, santa pillow, snoopy, dinosaur, and of course bugs. Yes, our bugs have the cleanest teeth. :)

2/9/2012 - Matt's Twitter
LG prefers her kids songs to the radio in the car, but then La Bamba came on and she happily sang to herself. I don't know what that means.

3/13/2012 - Hollie's Facebook
We found a spinosaurus, a hadrosaur, an ankylosaurus, a stegosaurus and a velociraptor all before lunch. Hey, paleontologists, you're looking in the wrong place. Our sandbox is apparently THE dig site.

3/19/2012 - Matt's Twitter
Last day of winter, 5:56 pm. Awesome.

4/25/2012 - Hollie's Facebook
All afternoon, LG picks up maple seeds all over the lawn, holds them above her head and shouts "BABY TREE!"
This may be my proudest moment as a mother. :)

6/6/2012 - Matt's Facebook
Behold! A picture of something I made sitting on another something I made! One is infinitely cuter, and it's the one with which I had help from Hollie.

Hint: it's the one in the hat.

7/13/2012 - Hollie's Facebook
I have never seen a child so distraught as mine at the thought of three little kittens being denied pie. She says "no pie" with all the empathy a toddler can muster.

10/8/2012 - Matt's Facebook
LG: this is my skull. (points to top of head)
Hollie: it protects your brain.
LG: like a helmet. It's my brain helmet.

Your skull: it's like a brain helmet.

10/12/2012 - Hollie's Facebook
LG and I played hide and seek at the park this afternoon. Can you find her?

10/15/2012 - Matt's Facebook
This picture just about sums up the weekend.

But to belabor the point: pumpkin pancakes, wagon ride to pumpkin patch, pumpkin picking, hay maze, corn maze, slow cooker chili, making chicken stock, stacking firewood, building a scarecrow, carving pumpkins (with a Dremel, thankyouverymuch).

11/25/2012 - Matt's Facebook
I am a paleontologist. 

(That's what I am. That's what I am.)

12/17/2012 - Matt's Facebook
LG: Daddy, this is my flower.
Me: It's beautiful! What color is it?
LG It's purple, and his name is Andrew.

1/5/2013 - Matt's Facebook
Me: If you want a milkshake, you have to eat more of your French fries.

I am an excellent father.

1/6/2013 - Hollie's Facebook
My child has her preggo mom's number.

LG in Target: "Look! Cookies to share with mama!"

Guess who is munching a cookie right now?

1/18/2013 - Matt's Facebook
My parents may be the only people who appreciate the significance of this, but it pleases me to no end that LG spent most of the car ride home tonight singing Roger Miller's "Do Wacka Do," and asking to hear it over and over.

1/23/2013 - Hollie's Facebook
Storytime with LG

LG: There was a green bug, and he said, "Oh my! My foot hurts!"
Mama: Why did his foot hurt?
LG: Because a crab pinched his toes. He went to the doctor and said, "Oh my! My foot hurts! I need a band aid." The doctor gave him a band aid. He said, "Oh my! That feels better."

The End.

1/27/2013 - Matt's Facebook
Sports with LG

This morning we played a game she invented called "soccer."

First you hit the soccer ball (plastic pear) with the baseball bat (plastic cucumber).

If you're lucky, you hit the pins (6 Weebles arranged in a triangle).

Run. Scream. Repeat.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

LG's mama here.  Given the topic of this post, Matt can claim little expertise so I am taking over for a time.  Matt is knowledgeable on just about any topic- and even if he's not he can fake it with the best of them.  However, hair is not one of those topics. (Insert Matt-is-bald joke and high hat crescendo here.)

I am not much more qualified to discuss appropriate hair styling. When I was little, my mother and I engaged in many a lengthy battle about my hair and the brushing thereof.  She put up a good fight, but I definitely went to school more than once with a head full of knots and who knows what else. Eventually things evened out, but when I took a job where I would be surrounded by animals and children, the messy ponytail took a firm hold.  Currently, I am rocking a Rogue-esque gray streak which I have convinced myself I aesthetically enjoy and is not the result of me being too lazy to get my hair dyed to cover it.

LG's hair has been a source of never ending joy and frustration to both Matt and I.  The old wives tale that predicted that my child would be born with a full head of hair as indicated by my pregnancy heartburn proved to be pretty accurate. More accurate in fact than what most of the doctors predicted about LG.

Her first day home, and already she made the house more fabulous.

Her hair then took a turn for the awkward. We were warned that she could lose some of those flowing locks as she grew.  I assumed it was an all or nothing proposition.  What we really got was a Peter Boyle thing going on.

Picture her tap dancing to "Putting on the Ritz" or yelling at Ray Romano. Your choice.

To cement the ridiculousness of this hairstory, there was also has a horseshoe shaped bald spot on the back of  her head from sleeping in the greatest technological advance in baby-sleeping ever- her Rock 'n' Play Sleeper.  She slept like the proverbial baby, but suffered the indignity of having a reverse receding hairline on the back of her noggin.You can't see it in too many pictures.  Perhaps she was too self conscious about it.

Then things got awesome.

Real awesome.

Baby Fauxhawk. 'Nuff Said.

Morning, noon, and night, her hair was at attention.

While I loved the fact that her hair was always ready for a rockin' party, I was starting to get worried that her hair would continue to grow up and not down. What do you do if that happens?  Invest in Dep gel and spike it like your life depends on it?  Pull a Sinead and shave it down?  Hide it under a Blossom hat? (Why are all my solutions 90s trends?)  I needn't have worried.  Her hair eventually settled into the most adorable pixie do all on its own.  People pay big money for their hair to do what LG's did naturally. 

The pouty cuteness is unbearable in this one.

The next stage in her hair development still gives Matt the shakes. Her hair kept growing- I've been told if you feed kids, these sorts of things are bound to happen. That would be fine, but it got to ragamuffin levels.  (If I'm not in the 1990s, I'm in the 1490s...) She has a wicked cowlick at the back of her head, and all the hair grew at different rates.  It drove me batty.  I can't tell you why strands of hair in her face bugged me so much, but they did.  Up to this point, we had never subjected her to big ol' bows and flowers on her head and only slapped a clip in her hair for special occasions.These sorts of things have just never been on my radar. I am a jeans, t-shirt, no makeup sort of girl.  I only got a grown-up hair stylist at the ripe old age of 29.   But some switch was flipped, and I turned into crazy pageant mom when her hair was messy and in her face. (Though, that is an exaggeration. For the record, I do not endorse tanning, flippers, or hair extensions.) I'm not proud of it. I can pretend it was born of necessity, but really, once I discovered she would willingly let me put in pigtails, ponytails, and more, it was a labor of love.  I loved the bouncy pigtails and messy up-dos.  Her face was just too cute to hide behind a wall of hair. And, when I found G2 was going to be a boy, it reached a fevered pitch. Like I said, she didn't really fight me on it.  I would usually get the whole shebang done before she was finished eating her waffle in the morning.  Yes, I would do her hair while she was strapped in her high chair and very distracted.  Don't judge until you see how cute it looked.

I was particularly proud of the braids.

No harm no foul. Until I had to be at work before she woke up.  In such cases, it became Daddy's job to tame the bedhead.  It was not pretty. I won't go into too many details- mainly because it really works Matt up.  For a man who's attention to detail when folding paper or wrapping a present is headachingly perfect, it was amazing how little hair actually made it into the rubberband when he was at the helm.

Because of this great divide, I finally conceded that she needed a haircut. I had been trimming her bangs for months. She didn't fight me, I only cut them slightly too short once, and her eyeballs are still intact. Matt claimed this was not enough and she needed a "real" haircut. I pushed the main event off until after Christmas because I didn't want it to be "Bad Haircut Christmas" when we looked back at the pictures. That day will come, but I wasn't ready yet.  I was nervous for lots of reasons.  I was afraid she would have one of those little kid mullets you see everywhere. I was scared she would flip out having a stranger come at her with scissors and would end up with half a haircut.  Logically, I know hair grows back.  I have had my fair share of bad haircuts, and haven't really sweated them.  I always shrugged them off and busted out the bobby pins. It was time to put that "logic" to the test.

We settled on Kids Kuts despite its poor spelling skillz because they let the kids sit in a car or on an animal while they get their hair cut. Seems fun, right? Observations from the event:

• Apparently only dads take their sons to haircuts. And, each time the stylist asked the dads what they wanted for their sons, they all shrugged and grunted "A boy haircut."  Apparently this is universally understood by hairdressers.
• Little boys will scream like they are being tortured when they get their hair cut.  
• Toys in the waiting room of a hairdressers skeeve me out only slightly less than the toys at the doctor's office.
•  Matt and I have serious stylist bias.  Independently, we were both silently hoping for the stylist with the nose ring and black hair instead of the one with the dark roots and blond ponytail.  Our wish was granted.
• I think it's weird to keep a lock of hair from a kid's first hair cut.  At the Academy, we have a book of presidential hair.  It's exactly what it sounds like. Visitors love this book of little bundles of hair from people who are long dead.  It weirds me out. I couldn't think of anything else when the stylist asked me if I wanted a lock of hair.

Kids Kuts was a great choice.  She loved sitting on the frog to get her hair cut and as luck would have it, they were showing The Muppets on the big screen in front of her.  She was quiet and patient, and the stylist was perfect.  She got exactly what I was asking for, and didn't waste time trying to butter the kid up.  She got in and out.

Bless you Muppeteers for making our lives just a little easier once again.

And the result was adorable.

The lollipop was just gravy after a ride on the froggie.

I think we'll keep up this style for a while.  I'll miss the pigtails, and I will forever be a little bummed that she got Matt's poker straight hair and none of my wild, wavy hair. Regardless of the state of her locks, she'll always be an amazing kid who's funny, brilliant, charming, loving and beautiful.

Even when her hair looks like this.

BONUS HAIR OUTTAKES!

Christmas, Take Three: The Year It All Came Together - Part 2

As promised on Monday, here's Part 2 of the Best Christmas Ever (so far).

10. LG helped pick out the Christmas tree. I actually took her on a practice run to the tree farm with her cousin and Hollie's Dad a week earlier than when we chose our tree. This primarily served as an opportunity to hide behind various Norway Spruce and shout at things. But it was gratifying nonetheless that she had a good time, and she did eventually give her approval to the tree you see below.

Mostly, she ran around and shouted at goats, but hey, what more do you want?

11. Unlike last year, she took an active interest in decorating the tree. Look, I fully recognize that I'm lucky. LG, while as clumsy as you'd expect from a being composed of equal parts Hollie and Matt, is a relatively careful and conscientious kid. She doesn't want to break things, and rarely goes out of her way to do so. Even so, she really wanted to help decorate the tree and was extra careful when doing so, without much prompting from us. Granted, it helps that we laid out all the kid-appropriate ornaments for her to choose from, but it still makes me proud that she was so careful.

It doesn't hurt that I have a giant box of tin ornaments like the one in the lower left picture.

12. Cookies fix everything. By this point in our excursion to see Santa and Christmas lights at the farm, LG's patience for the entire endeavor was wearing thin. Solution? Cookie. As I've stated before, I am an excellent father.

The only appropriate caption is "Om nom nom."

13. LG loves her cousins, second cousins and rabbits. We went through the phase when she loved everyone. We went through the phase when she was scared of everyone. We're currently in the phase when she's shy for 5 minutes, then she won't stop climbing on you. This was especially true of her cousin in the upper left and my cousin in the upper right. But it didn't take long before they were her favorite people in the room on Christmas Eve. 

Until the bunny came out. At that point, no one mattered.

And of course she has no problem stealing whatever Alissa is holding in the lower right.

14. Trains are wonderful things. When I was young, one of the highlights of our visit to my Uncle Charles & Aunt Nancy's house was Charles' massive train layout. Multi-tiered, intersecting tracks with tunnels and at least one train that blew smoke: it was amazing. And trains are at least as entertaining to LG. It doesn't even need to be that complicated. If it goes round and round and makes a whistling sound, it's okay by her.

Occasionally, you may need to provide your own whistle. This is fine, too.

15. Christmas Day was by turns wonderful and exhausting. I wish I could say that the exhausting portion of the morning resulted in a longer nap in the car on our annual 2.5 hour trip back to New Jersey. Alas, we only got 45 minutes of sleeping toddler. But still, look at how much fun she's having!

She looks weirdly surprised to be wearing an apron. 

16. Sometimes, Christmas lasts 'til New Years Eve. And sometimes, your friends dress your daughter like a princess. They've been threatening it since LG's birth, but our friends Kristen and Don doubled down on the frilly and glittery when they came to visit for our annual New Year's outing. I'd be more upset at LG's girlification if the things didn't make her so stinking happy.

Also, wand, sword, what's the difference? Either way, someone's going to get smacked in the head.

So yeah, Christmas was fun. I'm sure I've left out some ridiculously cute or amusing story, but in a season so full of fun and excitement, it's hard not to. And I've got to save something for next year, although I expect that blog post to be full of pictures of LG covering G2 in wrapping paper.

 BONUS PICTURE.

Nope, still not shiny enough.

Christmas, Take Three: The Year It All Came Together - Part 1

LG's first Christmas was fun, in that she wore a lot of different outfits. But she was sort of a lump, in that she just kind of sat where we laid her, and occasionally chewed on stuff.

Her second Christmas had its moments, too. She liked to look at lights; she opened presents with a little prompting; and she knew that Santa said "Ho, Ho, Ho."

But this year? This year we took the Holidays to a completely new level. Despite at least seven bouts of illness afflicting the three of us over the course of a month, it honestly might have been the best Christmas ever.

What's that? You'd like this explained in list form with helpful photographic proof? Here you go.

1. She took a much more active role in making wrapping paper for her gifts. Yes, we did do this last year, but you'll notice that she's being way more deliberate about it. You can even see individual footprints. Dexterity is a wonderful thing.

Most of the paint was on the paper or her feet, too. At least, in these pictures.

2. We finally managed to keep up with the Advent Calendar. Every morning before school, she carefully pulled an ornament out of one of the pockets, and just as carefully placed it on the tree. This is absolutely the first year that we didn't skip two or three days at a time because we just forgot about it. Plus, she only broke two or three of them, which puts her basically on par with Hollie and I in terms of how many we've had to repair each year.

And every day, we'd count the ornaments and point out every one we already hung.

3. She actively appreciates Christmas music. Seriously, we're going to be singing "Jingle Bells" and "Frosty the Snowman" until June. Prior to Christmas, she did know the words to a few songs, like "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb." But we hit some kind of memory milestone just as we started playing Holiday music around the house. My only regret is that she loved The Chipmunks Christmas and The Muppets' Red & Green Christmas albums so much that we didn't really listen to the more standard songs. Yet she somehow still knows the words to "Jingle Bell Rock" anyway.

4. She made her own gifts, and handed them out. In case it's hard to tell, we dipped pretzels in chocolate and then covered them in various toppings. LG handed them out individually to every single person in our family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and it was just as adorable as you'd imagine. So cute, in fact, that we forgot to take pictures of it.

I promise, no one was sick when we made these. But we sanitized constantly anyway.

5. While I'll readily admit that this is related to Christmas only inasmuch as it was on our visit to Johnson's Corner Farm to see Santa, my elation at seeing her play with all these carpentry toys knows no bounds. And it completely justifies the kid's tool set we bought for Christmas.

I love that she's using each tool more-or-less correctly. She clearly pays attention when I fix things around the house.

6. Anything even remotely Christmas-related held her attention. Here, we were watching Mrs. Claus read Twas the Night Before Christmas. Granted, she didn't want to go sit near Mrs. Claus, but given our history with her husband in years past, this was a stellar improvement. She just loves stories so much; it doesn't matter who's reading.

Granted, once she started the next story, LG wanted to go get some cookies. In fairness, it was dinner time.

7. She adored Christmas specials. We're judicious about TV at our house. Half an hour of whatever she wants after her bath (unless she's sick, in which case all bets are off). But we did make exceptions for Christmas specials these past few weeks (though, to be fair, most of those were after bath, too). She can tell you the plot of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer backwards and forwards. LG is particularly fond of Bumble's redemption by the end of the show. She loves to tell you how he puts the star on the tree. Come to think of it, she also likes to tell you how the Grinch gives all the toys back, too. 

But giving these animated specials a run for their money is the Muppet Family Christmas from 1987. There's almost no plot, but it's wall-to-wall Muppets. And you really can't go wrong with that. It doesn't hurt that halfway through watching it the first time, a group of carolers made their way past our house, stopped, and serenaded us with poorly played trumpet accompaniment. It was awesome.

8. Our visit with Santa went much better this year. We're not entirely sure why, but our theory is 1 year older + tractor - lap = tolerable Santa experience.

The cookie probably didn't hurt either.

9. The Macy's light show was just as fascinating the third time around. After three trips to the light show, it's officially a tradition for LG now. Add to that the fact that she could follow along and sing the songs as they played, and it was just glorious. Last year she wanted to run around halfway through the show, but this time, she didn't want it to end.

Ask her about it, and she'll still tell you how Frosty waved his arms.

Thus ends Part 1 of the Best Christmas Ever (til next year). Tune in later this week for Part 2.