{confessions of tillyless tuesdays}

I was just going to show you the sweet little baby head with its sweet little baby mullet and the progress on tilly tuesdays: volume II, but then I decided I should tell you the truth. The truth is, I haven't consciously taken a photo of Tilly on a Tuesday for sixteen weeks. There have been plenty of photos, and there have been the usual amount of Tuesdays, but if they've occurred together, it's been purely by chance.

If you remember, tilly tuesdays: volume one was a handmade book of photographs, taken each Tuesday of Tilly's first year. Ah, younger Astrid, and her need for perfection. Once, late on a Tuesday evening, she did the unthinkable -- the most taboo act of motherhood -- she woke a baby just for an authentic Tuesday photo. (Yes, I can hear your collective gasp, echoing around the world... don't worry, I've learnt my lesson.)

But earlier today, wanting to read an email without being asked to see "beh-bee? beh-bee?" (and then screamed at when the email had no baby in it), I pulled down volume one. Fifty-two weeks of beh-bee, in handy sit-on-the-floor format. Peace. And then I realised --  today is Tuesday, and I hadn't yet taken a photo. I didn't take a photo last Tuesday, the Tuesday before, or any of the fourteen great-great-grand-Tuesdays that came before that.

Luckily, present-day Astrid cares very much less about perfection. "Ah, close enough," was my mantra of the afternoon photo sorting, along with "If I tell myself enough that the dates are accurate, I won't know the difference." Sorry, future Astrid, it doesn't sound like I've got much faith in your memory. At least I've labelled the book for you so you'll know which child is in the photos. You're welcome.

Okay, enough words. You're here for the photos, I know.

While the first volume was full of milestones like Tilly smiling or eating food for the first time, this year the firsts are of a rather different nature. Two months ago: the first time she sailed around a miniature version of the world in a Lego boat. A month ago: the first time she picked up a ladybird. A week ago: the first time she really played with a friend, rather than just trying to hit him on the head with toys (sorry, Ewan). 

And that is why I have to keep it up -- so that all these photos don't fade into the jumble of "when she was little," but get to tell their stories and take their place in this weekly history of a person. Well, that, and I love the thought of teenage Tilly going to the photobooth each week to take her picture, twenty-year-old Tilly taking blurry self-portraits on a 'vintage' iPhone, eighty-year-old Tilly sleeping in a room full of filing cabinets (a la Bill Cunningham) filled totally with Tuesday photos... 

...let's see, 80 years x 52 weeks = 4160 photos. Okay, she'd probably just have them on a CD. 

{hello world, it's me, tilly}

Tilly's gone global. Find her sharing tips and tricks from her "Say Cheese" birthday party today over at the brilliant Ohdeedoh (the children's section of Apartment Therapy).

Or, if you've had enough cheddar, cameras and birthday party pics to last you a lifetime, why not check out these other inspired ideas:

• London-in-a-bag wooden block set
• The best apps for traveling with kids (please, remind me of this in a month, as we fly across the world with a wriggly jiggly fourteen-month-old)
• Cloudy day blackout shades
• Build your own bicycle sidecar (with two seats -- one for Tilly, one for Bella!)

{the first year, remembered}

This time, a year ago, Justin and I were pacing around the mall. Not looking for anything, just walking, walking, walking. Five days overdue and scared to show up at the doctor's office again to make difficult choices. We had a strawberry-banana fruit smoothie and pizza. We had no idea what was coming.

Today is the last day of the first year, and so we sit looking back. I can never seem to get over the fact that Matilda, this little tiny person, has favourites. She likes cups with straws more than cups with spouts. She likes chicken more than beef. She likes reading about Hairy Maclary chasing cats more than Hairy Maclary visiting the vet. Oh yes, and she likes dogs more than anything. She can say 'doggie' but not 'mama'. I'm not joking.

We made a little photobook to collect our favourite images of the year, and love it so much. Shutterfly has really outdone itself with the new levels of customisation. I'm all about getting the most amount of big photos onto a page, and really enjoyed the challenge of laying it all out!

364 days of obsessively taking photos, and I really do feel like it's paid off to see them collected like this. Very satisfying.

Below is my favourite page -- memories from nine to twelve months. There are definitely days where I feel we don't do enough, but then I realise that just in these two pages, we've got photos from Houston, San Antonio and Oklahoma.

Phew. Just taking a baby around the top floor of IKEA is enough activity for three months.

And really, we just can't believe that this birthday is already here. We just keep flipping through the months, to check they really happened. Are you sure we didn't dream it? I'm not going to wake up in a second and be back in a dark nursery, Fisher Price ocean noises playing, and find that Tilly is still two weeks old, sleeping (or not sleeping, more likely) on my shoulder in the rocking chair?

No, it seems like we're really here, a year later, faced with a whole series of different joys and challenges. And ready for another year!

{tilly tuesdays: volume one}

Every Tuesday for forty-eight weeks, each week since she was born, I've been taking a portrait of Tilly.

And creating a little handmade book for this year of Tuesdays couldn't have been easier. (So easy, I couldn't possibly bore you with photos of the process -- i.e. blank paper. Instead, you get a peek at Tilly's book of Tuesdays!)

Materials: 13 sheets of white cardstock, a sheet of patterned scrapbook paper, 52 photographs, a glue stick (or however you like to stick in photographs), a hole punch, string and a black pen.

Isn't it the best feeling when you already own all the supplies?

Each sheet of cardstock was simply folded in half, and then punched with the hole punch about 3" from each edge.

The pages were numbered by week, the photos were glued in on the centre of each page (and cropped slightly if they happened to be landscape).

The finished pages were stacked together and placed on top of the sheet of scrapbook paper. I drew around the pages, creating a cover which was about 1/4" wider than the card on every side, and then cut out the cover. Using the holes in the card as a guide, I marked where to make holes in the cover, and then punched them both.

String was threaded through the holes, starting outside the cover and going through to the middle, then up to the top hole and through back to the outside. I put the string through twice, and tied a knot so that it sat in the middle of the book. (But outside, on the spine, would work, too)

At the bottom of some pages, I marked special things that happened that day. For example, on week thirty-six, Tilly tried her first IKEA meatball. A major milestone in our family.

It's been a great way to see how she's changed over the year, and a wonderful way to display those "everyday" photos -- the ones that aren't always astounding quality (ahem, iPhone effects), aren't always of special events, aren't particularly memorable moments, but sum up daily life at that age.

The one thing that many of the photos have in common is Tilly's expression -- an expression I now recognise as a concentrated, determined effort to get her hands on the camera!

Yes, I'll need to work on getting a few more smiles in the future!

Today, Tuesday, is forty-eight weeks. What a shock it was to see a mere four blank pages left in this year!