Jacket On, Let's Go!

My parents paid us a visit on their way to Dunoon to attend the Gaelic festival, the Royal National Mòd where my dad is singing with his choir. Roman was asleep when they arrived but when he woke up he enjoyed being wrapped in a blanket and snuggled in with his granny. He came to life within half an hour and at the mention of going in the car to the shops he ran around the living room very excited at the prospect of taking a trip in his loved car seat.

"Help!" Roman said, bypassing me and heading straight for my mum with his unzipped jacket. I'm happy with his ease, with the bond that formed in the summer and has stayed since and most of all I'm surprised at myself; at how easy it is to watch others love him without feeling jealous of the relationship and able to enjoy it completely.

Big.

70/366

It's still strange to me that one look, one lens and one angle can change a whole perspective on things. Throughout this whole project I've mostly been using my two prime lenses; my 50mm and my 35mm. 

For anyone who wants to know: this is my Sigma 17-70mm lens. It's not great in low light as the f-stop only goes down to a 2.8 buuut it's a great 'all purpose' lens. Macro, landscape, even a slightly fish-eye effect and my favourite - portrait. I need to learn more about this lens because out of all my lenses, it was the most expensive. 

It's great for capturing cheeky full length growing toddlers and it takes my breath away to see how much Roman grows, changes and develops. To see him like this steals my heart - a walking, talking toddler but also still a little man. When I saw this photo on my computer I remembered something my mum said about him a few weeks ago; "He's such a little man, but he's really still a little baby, too." Yes. I agree completely.

365: The End of a Photography Era.

I DID IT!

365 days, 365 photographs = complete.

When Roman was a little over 4 weeks old I finally decided I should start a 365 Photography Project with him. The above photo was our starting point.

The idea came from Gregarious Peach a beautiful blog which 'documents delight.' 

I wanted to document my own delight and ended up doing so much more in the process.

(Image: C.Quinn. This is the original photograph and one of my favourite ideas, I decided to re-work this a couple of times.)

I uploaded the photos onto Facebook and under the description put down my days thoughts; any little stories, milestones or whatever else I had swimming in my head at the time. When my only reliable and decent camera died I still continued on. I took photos using my husband's camera phone. It wasn't until a few months later I decided we needed a 'better camera' and purchased our trusty 2004 Canon Powershot - as well as buying Lightroom later on in the year to enhance what the camera could not.

(Image: C.Quinn. My second re-work of the original photo above, totally different perspective.)

I haven't regretted a single day. There were days where I would comment on how crappy things had been that day or I would moan about sleeping patterns being destroyed, breasts hurting or neighbours being butt heads and when I look back now it provides me with a smile on my face and the perspective I need to see that my life is the most crazy/beautiful thing I have been blessed with ever.

(Image: C.Quinn. My third re-work of the original image and probably my favourite.)

I love it.

This Project was something I started as a keepsake for Roman and to keep my Mum and other family members updated on Roman. My Mum came to stay with us for a month - two weeks before and two weeks after he was born - in February and I felt sad she would miss out on his day to day growth. 

I have made some cherished ties with people I never even knew before this 365 Project and rekindled old friendships that time forgot. 

(Image: C.Quinn. I re-worked this second photograph as the 365 Project concluded. If you look very closely you will see B's hands wrapped around Ro's waist.)

I have learned so much - mostly from the King aka Roman himself - about life, about babies, about love, about loss (yep), about marriage, about myself, about cameras, about editing, about photography and about people reaching out in this year.

(Image: C.Quinn. Re-worked from the above image, here is what it looked like eleven months later. Making me teary eyed by sitting by himself on the wall - and still not too happy wearing socks. )

This is for everyone:

Thank you for being one of my cheer leaders. Thank you for being one of my followers, even if you didn't comment - thank you for taking five minutes out of your day to appreciate the work. Thank you for all the comments. Thank you for new and re-kindled friendships. Thank you for all the likes. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you a million times over.

And thank you to all my followers on the blog - and all my readers.

This is for B:

Thank you for taking the photographs, my crap about taking the photographs, inspiring some of the ideas and telling me I couldn't quit just about every single day.

And this, well this is the photograph we ended on:

P.S. I will still be keeping the blog on. After all this was a 'behind the scenes' look into our lives and I've loved writing about that.

Don't miss out!

Leave me a great comment.

My Biggest Fan.

Well aren't you just the lucky lot - exclusive pictures of my Little Man and my self-indulgent ranting.

Uploading this picture onto Blogger has unfortunately reduced picture quality - but it'll do. It doesn't take away his cuteness; the rounded face, the soft skin and baby quiff of blonde.

So I've started a "365 Project" with Master Roman. This is a one year operation. A photo and a story every day for one solid year. And no. This isn't my picture of the day - although that would have made sense, would it not?

Possibly. But I'm not designed to make sense. And if you're really curious to stalk, I mean, follow our progress you can track it here: http://365project.org/MammaQuinn/365

I've just had the horrible realisation that I haven't updated this Project (it's been getting updated via my Facebook) since Day 36. And today I hit Day 67. Oh no. Mass update and spamming ahead.

Today our Beauty of Beauties turned 14 weeks. This scares me because it means next week he will be at the four month mark. It's going too fast for my liking. He's growing out of absolutely everything 0-3 months. Last night I attempted wrestling him into a 0-3 month Debenhams (hello, it's Debenhams! Posh alert) baby suit. Not only was it snug - no wedgies or anything, but the poppers had a hard job of fastening round his "ample" bahookie - but it was also like those dreaded "Pedal Pushers" everyone thought were ever so fashionable in the late 90's/early noughties.

When the end of the suit met the knee - where the ankle should be - I knew it was time admit defeat and changed him into something a little more comfortable. And the weird part is I think he was enjoying being a fashion victim because he screamed at me when I dared put him into an all in one baby suit. That's men for you.

And on another note. I found out something about myself today that really disturbs and amuses me all at once.

I hate super-organised super-freaks. Seriously. I hate them. They are far too highly strung for my liking. Of course, the super-organised super-freaks that I know happen to all be really lovely, nice people that I always say I'll try and be more like - ha! Ikea would just love that. Wouldn't you my sneaky Swedish conglomerate?

So me + hating organised people =

I think I hate it so much because I'd LOVE for people to talk about how I have mad organisational skills. Instead I'm called bossy. These tears are tears of joy, honestly!

I know exactly where my hostility comes from. But I will talk around where it comes from for fear of anyone tracing themselves in this post and secretly hating me for secretly hating them and their talents that I so desire and lack all at once.

My hate manifested itself when I was pregnant. Books and people told me I needed to "get ready for the baby." Gee, because I don't have nine months ahead of me to get ready for the baby. I mean that's the whole point of those nine months. And what did the cave people do? Well, probably a lot more than me.

Anyway, naysayers and cave people behind me. It was made out as if you had to be "ready for the baby" the day you got pregnant. The nursery colours had to be picked out and painted. All 500 of your baby grows had to be bought, laundered with a baby-friendly product and stuffed into the drawer-that-turns-into-a-baby-changing-unit-with-hidden-baby-bath.

The thing that compounded my disdain were the various others who were pregnant at the same time as me. They had been a heck of a lot more productive and organised than me. Of course that will not come as any great shock to those who know me. I'm the sort of girl who will send text messages to people I'm meeting saying "I'm five minutes away" when in actual fact I'm still in bed. Or do stupid things like wax my arms and have DVD movie marathon sessions when I'm supposed to be moving home. True story alert: When we moved out of our flat in Alloa loads of people called by and they would say things like; "I can tell you're moving" and that would make me laugh. Because they were referring to the mess that was our living room. We hadn't packed a single thing.

There is something that especially irritates me about these Stepford Preggos, though. And it's this: There is absolutely no need for your rushing about. You have MONTHS ahead of you. I get that you're going to reach that horribly uncomfortable stage where you basically can't walk five minutes without needing a seat - or a wheelchair - but seriously, do you need to annoy everyone with your Nazi organisational streak in the first trimester? Because it is annoying, despite being admirable or desirous.

I get that I might one day die from some kind of heart failure from rushing around like a blue arsed fly at the last minute and I've really gone and shot myself in the foot marrying someone of the organisational skills of a goldfish. Bryan Disclaimer: no offence intended. I love you dearly, but we both know it's true.

So, there we were, four days before the Baby was due and still had nothing for the Baby to snooze in. No crib. With hindsight I shouldn't have stressed over this as much as I did. And not because my amazing, admirable and organised friend let us borrow her crib. Neither the fact that my amazing, whirlwind organised aunt POSTED us a crib - it's an amazing pop-up travel cot that's been much snoozed in, just for the record.

But because of this: The Baby didn't grace us with his lovely presence until a week after the due date. We had another week! Ha! In your face Organised Army!

And of course. If you're any normal person you might learn from this and snatch up your second chance like it was going out of fashion. Not me. For that whole week I just fretted about the birth and complained on the phone to every company going - I had a theory that it might scare the baby and he'd want to escape my scariness. Yeah, that didn't work.

Fortunately for me I had been saved. By my Mum. The Queen of all things Organised. Me? I can't organise a bun fight in Mr Kiplings. My Mum? Saves the day, every time. One time, when I was 10, I had ONE NIGHT to pull off a fantastic science project. I had had weeks to prepare. Then I let slip I had this science project to do. My mum asked when it needed to be done. My reply? Well, I told the truth so that's something to go in my favour.

With a heavy sigh my mum, who was probably more than used to me pulling these sorts of stunts, pulled out a cardboard box and started her magic in creating a miniature version of my bedroom. It was amazing. She had even included a little light - it had a lampshade and everything - that I'd made in a previous science project and had to be, somehow, integrated into this project.

I really hope I can keep up the pace of the 365 Project. I'm pretty certain I can. I'm finding delight and joy in it. No, seriously, I am. I wake up every day thinking "wonder what the photo of the day will be today?" and lovely messages in my inbox about it - which is amazing and keeps me going.

I hope to integrate a whole year of amazing events into the 365 Project. And Roman, my Dear, I hope you're my biggest fan.