Check This Out...

Warning: The following post contains a great deal of hyperbole.

Commercial #1
Like my new blog design? Yeah, me too. I.love.it.

Seriously, the design itself could not be cooler, and the process could not have been easier. I worked with this fabulous woman from this fabulous company and got a cool new blog in about 7 weeks for a ridiculously low price.

And coolest of the cool, I will now be changing my blog title and tagline periodically. Folks gave me such great ideas, and I think it would be completely fun to change it up at will. So while it’s still called Zany Mothering today, the next time you come it will probably be called something else. I'm feeling so inspired by the new design that I may actually update my profile.

So if you are hankerin’ to change up your blog, you should give the ladies at ruby and roja a holler. (…and there I just proved that I am indeed from Southern Ohio…)

Commercial #2
Occasionally I know people. Not big people, like say Michael Keaton – he of the Batman/Mr. Mom fame. But smaller fry. Folks who work hard and are great at what they do.

For example, I happen to know one fabulously talented photographer, and said photographer gifted us with a free infant photo session when Eily was born.

He said he needed practice photographing infants. He said we’d be doing him a favor. What he didn’t say was that I’d cry when I saw the photos.

So if you are in the Columbus area and you want amazing photographs of your children (or yourself), you should totally do a photo session at Franz Photography. Again with the incredibly easy to work with and ridiculously low prices.

How lucky am I these days?

Cool New Stuff

Lots of cool new things happening here at Chez RH, and since I usually bellyache and share all my various and assorted worries here (see any posts labeled Keith Richards, asthma, food allergies, or other stuff that worries me), I thought I’d take a minute to tell you about some good stuff.

Zane Good Stuff
My kid read his first word on Saturday. Honest to goodness, read it. Didn’t memorize it as the next word in the story. Didn’t guess it from contextual clues. He read it. As you can imagine, I was seriously proud.

Proud enough that we carted the baby to the library yesterday to pick out some “readers” so that he can practice the glorious act of reading. Because while I wasn’t going to push him into reading, now that’s he’s expressed interest, I can’t stop fantasizing about all the nerdy-fun we’re going to have reading together everyday for the rest of his childhood. (That’s how it works right?!)

The word was “off” by the way, so because I can’t contain my pride, here it is…Hot off the press! My kid can read one word in the preceding sentence!

More Zane Good Stuff
Zane is losing his first tooth. This morning he yelled up the stairs that he had “hurt” his tooth, and all I could think was G!@% D$#%@ Cap’N Crunch. Not only are you a sugary devil, now you go physically assaulting my boy’s choppers.

In actuality, the Vile Cap’N merely further loosened a tooth already destined to leave his mouth in the near future. So this is totally cool because Zane feels like such a big boy, but also kind of breaks a mama’s heart. You know, since Zane is getting to be such a big boy.

Eily Good Stuff
It’s official. We have a girl who smiles. Yep, she did it on her 4 week anniversary of life - looked at me big as anything with a wide-mouthed grin and sparkling eyes. For a bit, I thought it might be gas, but she has repeated it often enough that I’m quite sure that it’s a real-deal smile.

My Good Stuff
Getting a new blog design, friends. Yep, I’m revamping the whole thing. I may even change the title. It smacks of favoritism to have the title of your blog reflect only one of your children, doesn’t it?

As I read the sidebar last month, it barely seemed to be talking about my life anymore. For starters, Zane will be 5 next week – yikes! – and his food allergies and asthma don’t take up nearly the space in our lives as they once did. We rarely dash off to the ER or doctor these days. I’m creating a fulfilling work/life, and I get through most days pretty well. (I am, however, still married to the cynical, sarcastic man who makes me laugh every day, and Zane is still wildly adorable so not everything is different, I suppose.)

So…it’s time for a change, but I can’t figure out a new name for the blog which embraces all this good new stuff – Zane’s improved health, new baby, new work, etc.

Any ideas? ZanEily Mothering? Ryan-Hart the Lion Heart? The Rare Blogger?

What do you think?

Edited to add: BTW, my first name is totally fair game in the whole blog re-naming. Bring on the days of the week madness!