that you can have your blog printed? But here’s the thing- apparently they only print text, not pictures. See, I was thinking this afternoon (while driving back to the suburbs from downtown Sac, but that’s another story) that this blog is my scrapbook. I used to be an avid scrapbooker when Carmen and Eric were little. After Jerry died, it was harder to find the time. I did make a very nice baby book for Max though.

I think I’d like to print this puppy up. It’s probably the closest thing to a scrapbook that I will ever do. Plus, I remember hearing about a free blog service that shut its doors, leaving all of its bloggers hanging. I would hate to lose any of my stuff. I’ve noticed that I use it now like a calendar- I go hunting backwards to see when I made this or finished that or what have you. I guess the easy way would be to go from post to post and print it little by little. I think it would take me months! But worth it, really. I’d like to think that when I’m old and gnarled and can’t sew anymore, I can at least review my past works! If anyone knows of another service that can print pictures, I’d love to know about it.

In light of this new paradigm, I’m going to do a bit of mommy blogging. After all, they are my greatest creations!

Here’s a Max story:
About two years ago I took the kids into Sacramento to listen to a talk by Ann Brashares, the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. We were waiting for her to come on and Max leaned over and whispered to me, “You know what? Fondue is delicious AND fun.” *smiles* Funny little guy! We had had chocolate fondue a few weeks before this and apparently it had been on his mind!

Here’s a little Eric story:
I’ve written before about the problems Eric had as a little guy with his speech and hearing. Well when he was about four, he was pretty understandable, but his fluency wasn’t very good. Now, you have to know that Eric is famous for his appetite. He’s twelve now and he reads cookbooks for fun! One day when he was four, he looked in the freezer, slammed it shut, turned around, and shook his fist at me! While shaking his fist he said, “Why you no buy no ice cream?!” So, as you can imagine, this has become a catch phrase in our family!

And now, a little Carmen story:
When we found out we were expecting Carmen, we had just signed a year’s lease on a cute, but tiny two bedroom apartment for Jerry, my stepdaughter Heather and me. We spent nine months figuring out where to put the precious new arrival. For a long time, we gave Heather the master bedroom, put all the impending baby stuff in the second bedroom and Jerry and I slept on the hide-a-bed. When my pregnant back couldn’t take it anymore, we took back the master, put Heather in the second, and put a cradle in our room. Then came Carmen. I could not sleep with that child in the room with me. All I would do was lie awake and listen to every single breath. It was torture. At some level, I felt that I had to be awake to listen to her breath. If I fell asleep, she would stop. So…. then we moved her into the dining room and used a baby monitor. That didn’t work so well either because she never wanted to sleep if there was anything going on around her. We finally found the perfect solution. Her full size crib fit beautifully into the large walk in closet in our master bedroom. We hung a gorgeous bird mobile over her crib and she was as snug as the proverbial bug! She slept beautifully and I wasn’t forced to keep her alive by listening to her breath! In fact, she was such a dream baby that I now believe every baby should live in teeny, tiny bedroom!

Okay, that’s my mom stuff for today. Now I really need to get this stuff printed!