Life versus photography.

Have you ever noticed how effective photography can be in capturing all the small nuances of life? All those subtle changes that we simply don't observe in daily existence because we're too busy existing to notice?

Photographs of children are a prime example of this phenomena. Due to the fact that very young children change so rapidly over a relatively short span of time, one can more easily document these changes in photos. I have observed Ridley for every day of the 14 months that he's lived on this planet. Logically, I know that he is growing and changing daily. And yet, I will look at a photograph of him from only a couple of weeks ago and remark "Wow! He's changed a great deal in only this short time!" Amazing. It boggles my mind, anyway.

Speaking of photos, you've no doubt observed that I've added two recent ones of Ridley to this post. No longer the chubby, bald-headed, toothless baby of months ago, he's transformed into an active, lean and perpetually curious toddler. One who enjoys his pasta, as evidenced in photo number two (see below). Now if only he could score a glass of chianti to wash it all down, life would be perfect.

SPAM. The canned meat product, not the unsolicited e-mail variety. Never consumed it myself, but it appears that many people feel a strong attachment to their "chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added". So strong are their feelings that they have generated a web site of Haiku poetry dedicated to -- you guessed it -- SPAM. Check out: http://stuff.mit.edu/people/jync/spam/archive.html

Here's some of the SPAM Haikus (known as SPAM-kus) that stand out for me:

Empathize with them
Cut your finger on SPAM top
Pigs must feel that too.

and...

Pink porcine passion
Unzip the can, give it here
Wham! Bam! Thank you SPAM!

and more still...

Cold and congealed, ugh
Add some heat, now nicely browned
Much better to eat.

I am the anti-Mom Mom. I rarely manage to make it out to the local drop-in centres or playgroups, mainly because I'm bored with discussing baby-related matters with other mothers. I cringe at those e-mails from BabyCenter.com that supposedly contain helpful parenting tips but are thinly disguised marketing devices for the purposes of flogging consumer baby products that you just don't need. Listening to The Wiggles makes me want to puncture my own eardrums to escape the mind-numbing torture (sorry, Cindy). You'll never catch me forwarding on one of those cloying, sickly sweet e-mail chainletters that jammer on about "how motherhood is the most rewarding job you'll ever have". Yuck!

I lovelovelove my little guy, but ooooooh boy do I ever look forward to those days when he's in daycare and his Mom can concentrate on her work. No, Ridley is certainly not deprived of interaction with other children, as I do regularly attend a mother's group on Friday mornings. He also receives heaping portions of social contact at his daycare. I cannot imagine being a full-time stay-at-home Mom. I'd go bananas. It's called balance in life, folks.