An aside on blogging and parenting

Ok, while the girls are still asleep, here's a view into our creative process:

We come home every day and look at our collection of photos and videos (no vids posted yet, but stay tuned) and talk about what we think is interesting. Although I do the actual typing, the girls have strong views on the content of the posts. They like me to write, and then read back to them, and write some more, and read back again (hence, we do multiple drafts). They laugh and improvise a lot as we write. In fact, the girls sometimes dictate the text. The description about the trauma of a piece of dirt flying into Sophie's eye (below) is largely her voice.

We write in the spirit of telling our best friends what we've been up to all day. In fact, the girls are starting to take pictures and think about our activities in terms of what is "blogworthy," which creates a new dimension to our days. They don't know exactly who has been invited to visit the blog, but they definitely assume that only people they know (and who know them) are the readers. I have a similar view since, really, who else would care? On the other hand, I realize we're publishing to the world and think about things like, "who else might be reading this?" and "how long should I let the blog persist after we come home?"

Ok, there's our moment of geeky mommyhood for the day.

Two vignettes on hanging with the girls:

* Anna has had a rough time with the jet lag and generally wakes up around 3 am (but goes back down after a couple hours). Once she's up, she'll sit cross legged on the mattress over me and just watches me trying to keep sleeping. That lasts for about 5 minutes. Then she starts very gently tracing my facial featues with her finger, which is like having a hummingbird dance on your face. That's another 5 minutes. Now, she's ready to talk. My sleeping habits remain, just as when she was an infant, tied to hers.

* Sophie is fascinated and horrified by the gypsies who beg on the streets and in the subways. She is vigilant about making sure that I keep my backpack locked and safe from theivery. Her insight is that the gypsies have a tactical flaw. "Mommy," she says, "why do gypsies dress like gypsies? They would have a better chance of stealing if the didn't look like gypsies." And after some more concentrated thought on this problem. "They should save up their money to buy clothes that look like other people and then we wouldn't know they were gypsies and be afraid of them."

Ah, I hear them waking up. We'll be back.