Christmas in October

For the most part, I’ve always been against shopping for Christmas at least until after Halloween. I’m one of those people who give a disapproving head shake in stores when plastic pumpkin candy buckets are lined up next to light up yard snowmen.

But this year, something has taken over. Her name is Olivia.

I’ve reverted back to an age where I believed in Santa, and I was ready as soon as the Fourth of July was over to start a list of toys I hoped he’d deliver.

This will be Olivia’s first Christmas, and she’ll be just a couple days over seven months old when the holiday falls. She’s mastered laughing, looks intently and curiously at everything around her and grabs anything within her reach.

What’s more, the best toy anyone could possibly give her is paper – especially shiny, glittered, super-crinkly, bright red paper.

I already have a head full of images of her sitting on the floor between my husband and me next to the Christmas tree as the little white twinkle lights shine. She’ll have no idea who Santa is, nor will she care that a few extra special gifts will be marked from him in my best Santa handwriting.

I can’t wait to see her tear the paper off and – after I’ve taken the paper away so she doesn’t try to eat it – give a little Olive giggle about the new toy wrapped inside.

Halloween doesn’t fall until tomorrow, but I’m pretty well done with Christmas shopping for my little ladybug – minus only the spur-of-the-moment things I’ll find over the next couple months. She’s even set with an adorable Christmas dress already. OK, so maybe she has two adorable Christmas dresses, but trust me, she needs them both.

She’s not even old enough to sit up on her own yet, so I know logically that she won’t remember this Christmas. That said, I know it will be one of the many that I’ll never forget.

Red Eye

Can repeated camera flashes permanently damage a baby’s eyes? I sure hope not. If they can, my camera breaking gave Olivia about a month of safety, but now, trouble is once again on the horizon.

The lens on the camera my husband got me less than three years ago got stuck in the out position just before I could snap a shot of one of my nieces crossing the finish line at a cross country meet about a month ago. I was sad that I didn’t get the perfect picture of her I’d set myself up for. I was disheartened when pushing the power button repeatedly a few hundred times – which worked in the past – did nothing but cause me additional frustration.

Since Olivia’s birth, I’ve been slightly obsessed with taking many – as in sometimes 40 or so – photos of her daily. I’m pretty sure I’ve almost gotten in the shower once or twice with the camera still wrapped around my wrist. I need help.

After a week of trying to fix the camera, I took it to a local camera shop in hopes they could give me an easy fix. To my dismay, the store owner said the best he could do was sent the camera in to Canon (please note that I no longer recommend anyone purchase a Canon camera), but that I’d save money by just buying a new camera. He then said, “If it were me, and I was at the end of the road with a camera, I’d hit it a few times before buying a new one. It can’t hurt at this point – but I won’t do it for you.” I left the store with little hope.

When I got in my car, I took his advice, used all my strength to shove the lens back in the camera and held my breath as I hit Power again. “Lens error. Restart camera,” it taunted me for the 500^th time. Worthless piece of crap camera.

On my birthday I ordered a new, pink, pocket-sized Sony Cyber-shot camera from Best Buy after explaining to the sales clerk that the most important feature in my choice of new camera would be shutter speed. I pointed to my lovely, smiling Olivia saying, “I can’t miss catching any more of her smiles.”

Two weeks later I had – not the camera I ordered because of who knows what happened with my order – a new, black, pocket-sized camera and I’ve been back to my click-crazy self. I can’t get enough of recording every precious moment of Olivia’s life – her smiles, her milestones, her curious looks as she learns something new, her sleep and general enthusiasm for life. I’m hoping camera flashes can’t do any permanent damage because I don’t foresee my addition to my daughter’s cuteness dying down any time soon.