I eye Crocs every time I go grocery shopping — there’s a big old display of them at our local Henry’s Marketplace. I love the fun colors and the airy feel of them but when I come to try them on, I can’t bring myself to buy a pair. They just look so chunky-clunky.

We’re going away for a couple days soon and Tau could really do with a pair of beach-slash-garden shoes. Yay Crocs! So I brought a pair home today. Actually, they’re not Crocs; these are made by Skechers. Same diffs. He loves them!

Holly holy, look what we got!

Humphreys is a fabulous venue — small, open air, on the water. The tickets say “No Smoking.” Hmn. A UB40 concert and no haze in the air? Should be interesting.

They’ll be performing in South Africa in July by the way.

Two nights ago, we’re out walking the neigborhood. Dave and I talking about the day, Mister Kapister in his stroller, singing to himself:

“Ap-pee … ap-pee! Ap-pee!” And clapping his hands together.

We pause. “What’s ap-pee, Tau?”

“Ap-pee! Yeh-yeh!” More clapping.

Scratching our heads. “Happy?”

“Ap-pee!” Clap. Clap.

Ah! “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”

Clap. Clap. Perfect timing.

We had no idea he knew this song. The joys of daycare.

We went on to “stamp feet” and “shout yeh-yeh!” (hooray!). I got a bit carried away and was just about to do the clap-clap-stamp-stamp-hooray verse when Dave pointed out that people working on cars in their driveways were looking at me funny. Didn’t think I was singing that loudly.

It’s Photo Friday at CHBM and the theme this week is strange positions. Here’s Tau at five months practicing the yoga pose commonly known as Happy Baby.

And here is a link to yoga master Rodney Yee doing his best Tau impression!

Note: This topic was my suggestion for this week’s carnival at Crazy Hip Blog Mamas.

I’m a reluctant fan of Parent Hacks. Reluctant because it’s all just so organized and resourceful. Nothing against the wonderful parents that post there or Asha who does an amazing job bringing it all together, but I’m just not that concerned about bath-towel corners getting wet. Not frugal or systematic enough to schedule freezer leftovers.

Yet I’m a fan of the site because I love the idea of collective wisdom, the virtual village it takes to raise a child. I find myself dropping in again and again, hoping to spot the one tip that’ll make some or other aspect of parenting a WHOLE lot easier. Sometimes it pays off. This one made dressing my kid much easier in the mornings and this one stops me double-guessing Tylenol dosages.

That said, whenever I’m at Parent Hacks I find myself reading with a bit of a smirk. Am I the only one who’s noticed, for example, that the Poo, Pee, Potty section is ever so clear of bodily fluids? Where’s the poo and the puke we all deal with? There have been weeks in our house when we’ve had to wash all of Tau’s lions, not to mention his high-chair cover almost daily. This and several bouts of stomach-bug-du-week under our belts make me a little surprised, disappointed even, that the PPP category at Parent Hacks focuses almost entirely on clever diapering tricks. How to get them on and off with ease. How to pass notes back and forth with your spouse, scribbled in Sharpie on your child’s diaper.

And so, with more than a bit of chagrin, I offer the four not-so-clean hacks that have saved our butts. Literally in some cases.

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It seems sunshine has inherited his mother’s phobia of feeling constricted.*

I tried a pair of orange shorts on Tau this morning that he wore late last summer. A bit short in the body but the waist was loose enough. Tugged them up around his middle.

“Hhn!” mutters he. Look of furrowed-brow consternation. “SSSTU-CK!”

* For years I’ve been trying to find a sleeping bag that doesn’t make me feel like I’m in a straightjacket. Worst thing: Sleeping on a bumpy tent floor in a mummy bag. Ack!

A frenzied air-guitar riff can be heard across the South-African blogosphere. Enough to make your mother come up to your room and tell you to shut the hell up, she can’t hear herself think so stop-that-racket-immediately!

Sunday Times columnist David Bullard recently went off on bloggers:

“Most blog sites are the air guitars of journalism. They’re cobbled together by people who wouldn’t stand a hope in hell of getting a job in journalism, mainly because they have very little to say. It’s rather sad how many people think the tedious minutiae of their lives will be of any interest to anyone else.

… The content of their sites is so moronic that even their best friends would disown them if they knew they were the authors. As with most things in life, something that costs nothing is usually worth nothing …“

Bullard’s full article is flawed and myopic but it struck the chord he intended. South-African bloggers got out their picks and started chang-cha-chang-ing like crazy. I got annoyed too at the wild generalizations, the ridiculous comparison between bloggers the world over and the Virginia Tech shooter (of all people). I won’t reiterate what many have already said — read what Vincent Maher had to say for a succinct, well-crafted response — but I feel I can add this.

I am the kind of blogger Bullard belly aches about. The mommy kind who goes on about her teething offspring and the fabulous pad thai her husband whipped up on the weekend. Who posts pictures of her garden and family road trips, and goes off about politics when she is hardly qualified to do so.

I maintain a blog because I can. The Internet is open-mic night at the local coffee shop and I can get up there and strut my stuff. I don’t have to be a professional and I don’t have to be any good at it. I am not a journalist.

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Euphorbia tirucalli

We bought this Pencil Tree, along with six or seven other succulents and cacti at the local farmer’s market this Saturday. And so I spent a couple of hours this afternoon potting and arranging them on the patio.

Our tiny garden is coming along nicely and should by pretty lush in a month or so. Dave has worked hard on it — pulling out stuff killed by the frost this past winter and adding plants that will hopefully handle both the heat and cold a bit better.

I’ve started two new sets on our Flickr page: One for pictures taken around the house, including some of the new plants, and one for Tau pics 19 to 24 months. (Yes, I’m a cheapskate — have a free account, which means you can only have three sets at a time. The old sets get deleted but the pictures in those sets are still available in your photostream.)

There are approximately 301,765,999 people in the US.
How many have your name?

To find out, visit How Many of Me?

Apparently there are 395 people in the US walking around with
my first and last name. Dave is more common — 1,180 of him.

Our son? Not so many.

I guess that’s what you get for crossing a
Tswana/Sesotho first name with an Irish surname.

So the one night I don’t go whooping it up at the House of Blues, Britney Spears shows up. Sheesh!

“It lasted only 14 minutes but Tuesday night saw Britney Spears’ first live performance in nearly three years.

The 25-year-old mother of two, whose life has been dominated by wild partying and a stint in rehab since divorcing husband Kevin Federline last year, returned to her day job as she took to the stage at the House of Blues in San Diego.

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Recently we were asked to send along a disposable camera to daycare so that teachers could snap pics of Tau as he goes about his daily business.

I’ve posted a few of them on Flickr. Unfortunately none with his classmates — too much schlep to ask the parents’ permission.

Picture resolution is not so great but the little guy is captivating as always (’cept for the doff expression on the one taken with his teachers).

Enjoy!