Baby Julian, on film

While Julian was shooting his first roll of film, I was finally developing the last roll of film I took before getting my digital camera.

After taking (and developing) film photographs with a Canon A-1 for eight years, I switched to a Canon Rebel XT just after Julian was born. The last roll in the A-1 sat in the camera for three years before I finally pulled it out earlier this year to develop it.

It took me a few months, but I finally had the roll developed, and here are some of the images. (I can't believe how quickly we make the change from one technology to another. Even while living in Spain, I was able to get a roll of film developed within a week of finishing it.)










I kinda like the quality of the photos. I guess it's part of this oh-so-21st century desire of "perfecting flaws."

Julian's first roll of film, yes real film

When digging through my stuff, I found an empty disposable camera from, oh, a decade ago. Julian had fun learning how to charge the flash, click the shutter and, strangest of all to this child who long ago snapped his first digital picture, wind the film.

Cascarones and a trip to the zoo

I am (or was, as of Friday afternoon) at inbox zero for all three of my primary e-mail addresses. (Ah, the weird world we live in where three e-mail addresses isn't out of the norm.)

Why stop at e-mail? Here are some pictures from this spring I found buried in my iPhone. Better five months late than never, right?

Just before SXSW, we took a trip to Fort Worth to see Ian's brother's family. We had the best few days with them, including this trip to the Fort Worth Zoo.





Just before Easter, it was all about cascarones at Julian's school party. All the kids (and the adults) had a few dozen eggshells filled with confetti to break up and throw on people.








We were cleaning confetti out of our hair for days.

Flashback through childhood

In May, my parents decided to sell the house that we'd moved into in the early 1990s. Over the course of the years, Chelsea and I eventually graduated and moved out, but both of us left behind boxes of the weird memorabilia you collect over the years. Homework, knick-knacks, photographs, hand-written notes to your best friend in high school Algebra. Diplomas, newspaper clippings, yearbooks, VHS tapes of media production videos.

I had about a dozen containers, from small Tupperware containers packed with notes from my college classes to big boxes with spelling bee trophies and debate team medals.

My folks finally said they weren't going to babysit all that stuff any more. (They were moving to my grandmother's house and didn't want any extra baggage.) On top of that, they said, it was my lucky day: They would hand-deliver it when they came down in early July.


I knew this day was coming, and even though I thought I had purged all I could after high school, but it was time to purge again. For two weeks, I tackled a box or two at a time. I made piles all over the living room for sentimental artifacts (1st birthday cards, letters from my mom), historical documents (You can't throw those 9/11 papers away!) and photographs.





I was surprised at the number of food-related things I found. Books filled with recipes from my third grade classmates' families (usually mothers, but that's a post for the Feminist Kitchen.), apples drawn with red crayon, (badly written) essays about popcorn.








I also found some evidence of my sprouting feminism and distrust of many of the lessons of organized religion.





Ever the pack rat, I loved going through this record of my life and it did pain me to part with some of it. (Was I really ready to throw away that football, autographed by the entire football team, from my junior year when I was nominated for homecoming queen?)

But a big part of nesting is purging, so I indulged in lightening the load.

Barefoot and pregnant in The Feminist Kitchen

This time, I have a perfect good excuse for the nearly two-month lapse in posting.

I started a new blog. (More on that in a second.)

Fear not, faithful readers of La Vie Dansante, who have been tracking my family's progress since I was pregnant with Julian. This blog was my very first foray into blogging and social media, which is now a significant part of my work life (Not to toot my own horn, but I just found out that I was named the top user of social media by a national association of features editors).

As my online (and much more public) life as a food writer has developed, I've spent the time I would have spent writing about the dancing life trying to consciously live the dancing life.

And now I find myself two months from having another baby and two months from having posted a single thing of record for the first one.

Family and kid blogs really are the modern day scrapbook, and I owe it to my own to keep this up, even if it's not as frequent as I'd like.

And as if I don't have enough balls to juggle, enter The Feminist Kitchen, an online project I started a few months ago.

It's a blog (bookmark it: thefeministkitchen.wordpress.com) that I post to about once a week on topics related to women and food. I've been fascinated with women's studies and feminism since before I was ready to identify myself as one, and connecting feminism and food is a natural extension of my personal and professional lives. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it. Please engage by leaving comments, sending me topic ideas or story links or, if you feel compelled, contributing an essay you feel moved to write. (E-mail me at broylesa AT gmail DOT com if you are interested in writing a guest post.)

Now, on to a little update about Julianito and all the changes in our lives.

The biggest change is this belly and the baby growing inside. He's already getting hand-me-downs (foremost, the name we almost gave Jules) and tons of love from his big brother, who gives my belly kisses and tickles and wants him to play pirate with him.

We couldn't ask for a better few months leading up to baby. It may be hot as hell, but it's my favorite time of year, there's water in the greenbelt, exciting things are happening at work, Ian and I are playing on the same team and we all have a great attitude about the new kid.

Like last time, I'm loving being pregnant. It's the most special, unique period of time because it's always changing and it comes to a definite end. This will be the last baby, so I'm trying to enjoy every kick and hiccup, every fawning comment about my glowing skin or cute belly. (I could do without the heartburn, but I really can't complain. Baby's healthy. I'm healthy. Not everyone is so fortunate.) I can't remember if I've written about this before, but I don't mind when people touch my belly. It's nice when they ask, but it's such a privilege and an honor to carry a child, it's the least I can do to share some of that glory with others.


Julian has been obsessed with what he calls "dangerous signs" for months now. When we go to the greenbelt, he has to stop and read all the signs about no camping or alcohol. If he sees a flash of yellow or red (especially that circle with a line through it) on a trash bin, a box or even on the visor of the car from his perch in the backseat, he wants to know what it says.

I'm so proud of us keeping up the Spanish with him. We have a ton of English books at home, so when we go to the library, we check out books in Spanish (the Bizchoco series is his favorite right now). When he pointed out Amelia Earhart on the cover of Night at the Museum II, he called her "Familia Earhart." He's excellent at understanding commands and will sit through cartoons in Spanish. We practice as much as we can on our frequent "adventures" in the city to the grocery store or the bibilioteca or the mercado de granjeros. He's my little amiguito adventuroso.

Julian went on his first field trip today to see "Toy Story 3" (we saw it when my parents were in town in early July — yes, I cried — but he enjoyed seeing it again) and last night, he ventured for the first time into the deep water at Barton Creek with the assistance of a small inner tube. (We hadn't been able to get him into water where he couldn't touch in any other flotation device or even with Ian or me.)

(Small detour here: A few weeks ago, on Father's Day to be specific, when we were swimming in on the Blanco River in Wimberley, I saved an older gentleman from going under. He was in distress and I was the only person within earshot who heard him call for help. The adrenaline kicked in, and I swam over to him, calling for additional help to a group of folks on the shore. I can't remember exactly if I pushed or pulled him to a place where we could both touch, but somehow we made it. By that time, several strapping fellows had hustled out to help get him up on the bank. Luckily, he didn't lose consciousness, but he was pretty close.)

Luckily, the pregnant lifeguard wasn't needed during subsequent trips to the San Marcos River (floating with Erin from Dallas) and the Gulf of Mexico (Port Aransas, on the Fourth of July, with my mom and dad and the boys). It's been a summer full of water, which makes this water baby very happy.

Here are some photos from our trip to my friend Loncito's ranch over Independence Day weekend:











YaYa will be coming down in September for the littlest's arrival, but that means we have just less than two months to enjoy what's left of life as a family of three. It's been a wonderful summer, which I'm sure will lead to a fantastic (not to mention eye-opening) fall.