Baby Favies

I love a good mood board. One snapshot of a bunch of different items that capture a style and a feeling of a room, an outfit, a season, pretty much anything.  They are a great resource on Pinterest, and will often give you a great snapshot of your personal taste and style when you come across one that sings for you.

A friend recently asked me about doing a post with my favorite baby Noa items, so I threw together a fancy (to me) white compilation. 

Compared to the things I liked/bought for Judah and Layla, my style has come light years. Not only is my taste level much more thoughtful, but the items I am choosing to buy are actually much more meaningful since I love each one so much. I have ended up spending much less on this baby (even factoring in hand-me-downs), and yet I find a lot more joy and quality in Noa's stash than I did by buying meh things in bulk before.

Of the 15 items pictured, I own about half already. Some are DIY-able by me and so I won't need to purchase, and some are just wishes. The majority are handmade or from small businesses, which--as a small, handmade, business owner myself--imparts another dose of love and thoughtfulness into the item as well.

Our Sweet Girl Print  / "hello i'm new here" Onesie / Leather Bow Set / Wooden Diaper Bag Tag /  Teething Rings / Mommy & Me Bracelet Set / Baby Lounge Leggings / Wiggle Snake Grasping Toy /  "Little Muffin" Onesie / Pink Moccasins / "Pretty Young Thing" Onesie / State Rattle / Earflap Hat /  Bandana Bib / Crochet & Wood Teether Toy

What are your favorites? Do you have any must-haves, or drool-inducers of your own in the wide world of new baby items that I need to know about?

My Real-Life, Well-Dressed Toddler Son. Ramen + Quinoa

It's a sign of how out of it I have been that a wonderful, unexpected, priceless milestone happens for Judah this summer, and it slips my mind to blog about it.

"Hello, Posterity? This is Keight. Sorry I forgot to feed you."

It starts with Layla.

I added a little kid version of a hipster infinity scarf to my Etsy shop last fall. The cover model was this girl, who looked impossibly squnchable in her bunny print, posing like a veteran...poser?

toddler sold separately

Shortly after listing these, a customer asked about how they would look on boys, so I made Judah try one out for me and took a photo to show the customer a boy look. I also went ahead and ultra-hipster-fied him and had a full photo shoot complete with stage-mom directions in front of our house.

Because I'm 31 and was lacking any healthier hobby options, I guess.

The pics were hilarious. Somewhere between my "okay now give me Blue Steel" and his "Jeepers, Ma! I so dont want to be doing this," we landed into a pile of fabulously ironic and painfully cute poses and expressions.

I remember thinking he looked so big when I was taking these 11 months ago. Clearly I was delusional because he is TEENSY here.

But my favorite for sheer hilarity was the one I decided to post on my Instagram feed:

the duckfaced pout, the hand in pocket, the defiant chin. it's all so perfectly hipster. can't you just hear him extolling the virtues of kimchi or savagely critiquing a craft beer here?

Well my buddy, Emily, saw this pic and made a comment that, "Quinoa would love this" with hashtag #MIWDTD.

My immediate reaction to this comment was that Emily had maybe eaten some magic mushrooms becuase she surely was not making sense. But when I searched that hashtag I found a treasure of an Instagram feed belonging to the creator of the insanely viral Pinterest board: My Imaginary Well Dressed Toddler Daughter (hence #MIWDTD).

Created by  Tiffany Beveridge, the board (and Insta-feed) takes some of the more ridiculous children's fashion ads in existence and puts a story to them via brilliantly witty captions.  Like such as (...the Iraq):

Quinoa is basically the little girl who is cooler, richer, more gluten-free, and far more fashionable than you could ever hope to be. If you've heard of something, that means that she was into it, like, forever ago and is already completely over it.

So once I found the MIWDTD Instagram feed and instantly followed it, I decided to tag Judah's pic with that same hashtag too, since the boy in the pic could TOTALLY be a friend of Quinoa...or at least a  solid frenemy.  We brainstormed what his name would be: Gingham? Chai? Yolo? Nofilter? Neon? 

And then to my wild delight, Quinoa's "mom" herself popped in and commented on Judah's picture! 

Um, my child, being a hipster doofus, in a published work?! uh-duh!

So I sent her the pic and signed the release. I continued to follow Quinoa, laughing all the way (HA HA HA), and saw as the release date for the book was announced and then the advance copies went out, figuring Judah hadn't made the cut since I had never heard a final word. I wasn't too surprised since most of Quinoa's material is taken from work by real professional fashion photographers, in real ads, with much more over-the-top clothes and settings. I thought about asking Tiffany if Judah was in the book, but was too chicken to hear the rejection outright.

But the day the book came out we were by a bookstore getting dinner, and I said, well, let's go look at the book, just to be sure Judah's really not there, and buy it anyway since it's hilarious and perfect coffee table/guest bathroom reading.

I went to the front to ask for a copy and Jesse (the man) went to hunt it down without help. We both came towards each other holding the copies we had found and leafing wildly through it. 

"SHUT UP NO WAY!" I screeched. "PAGE 14 PAGE 14!!! HE'S IN HERE!"

You guys, she named him RAMEN! Just so beyond perfect as said noodles are a favorite of mine and a go-to during the rough-tum-tum weeks of pregnancy for me. 

And that caption, sheesh, she is spot on!

I was freaking out and making a slight scene screaming about him getting a FULL PAGE! and then forcing the kid to pose with the book.

Naturally we bought a copy (and so did my parents) and proudly display it in our living room (we've yet to get him to autograph it...a genius idea my dad had!). I also sat down and read the entire dang thing cover to cover in one sitting, cracking up all along the way. 

I give this book two thumbs way up (even if it weren't for page 14!), and since we donated the photo for free we see no profit for it's sales, so that is NOT why i give my thumbs.

All jokes aside, I have no intention of ever directing my kids towards modeling--even if they were "right" for it, so this was such a fun, once-in-a-lifetime thing for Judah to get to be a part of (especially since it was already done just for fun in the privacy of our own yard by the time we realized it would be published.. No stage = no stage mom potential!). He's set for life on at least one of his "two truths and a lie," and will always have a handy interesting fact about himself to put forth. 

Get a copy for yourself. Ramen/Judah will gladly autograph it for you.

Thank you, Emily for introducing me to Quinoa. Thank you, Tiffany for your rapier wit and for including us in your work. And most of all, thank you, Quinoa for being a paragon of what we should all aspire to, and for already being so totally over it by the time we caught on.

Naming Our 3rd Human

We are serious about names around here. Both of our big kids' names come with all sorts of built-in prayer over their identities and futures and declarations we have made about who we want them to be (I realize this might sound a little culty/commune loco--no worries. I used to be the same way until I married into this family, and was given my ration of Kool-Aid). 

We have written the stories of our processes of naming Judah David and Layla Embry, and seeing them grow up and grow into themselves, we know we made the right calls (and that God gave us these names for them) because they just SO ARE Judah and Layla (even to the folks who thought these names were straight bonkers or even ugly when they first heard them).

Now we have another baby to name! And with only 6 weeks to go, we might want to speed it up.

Third time is hard. You have to make sure the name fits with the existing kids (Judah, Layla and baby Gertrude just doesn't have the cohesion we're looking for), but maybe you've already used your super-faves on your existing children. Of course since I was expecting this babe to be a boy, we had several boy names that we LOVED all ready to go, so another adjustment to the GIRL announcement was jettisoning those gems and rustling up a girl name from scratch.

It did not ease my adjustment into the pink pool when Jesse suggested (hours after finding out the gender, when I was still dealing with my weird feelings) a few names that just repelled me--not because they are ugly in and of themselves, but just because they super duper weren't my taste for a child in our family. "Neena" and "Jael" were two that literally made me cry when he texted me. I was like, "IS IT POSSIBLE YOU WANT ME TO HATE THIS CHILD!?!?! AND ISNT JAEL SUPERMAN'S DAD!?!?!" 

He took a break from suggestions at that point.

Once I was back on planet earth emotionally and appropriately excited about this little lady, we set out with a wish list of what we would ideally find in a name. The parameters were:

1. A meaning we could feel good about

2. Unique (I'm already stressed that Layla is climbing the charts!)

3. Fitting in with our Judah/Laya theme (which I guess is a tad hippie/weird, but also classic, and having an "UH" sound at the end wouldnt hurt)

4. That indefinable X factor where it just feels like "yes, that is who this baby is."

I also looooooove unusual boy-names-as-girl-names. Not so much the ones that have already been done, but more making them up myself.  One of our closest friends is named Lukas, it has a great meaning, and I would ADORE that as a girl name, but with our last name, it could never happen. "Lukas Dukas," anyone? I also do not hate Gideon as a girl's name either. Judge if you will!

So i focused on the cool/unique side of things and Jesse went deep into the meanings (remember how went into the rabbinical notes from the Talmud for Layla's!). We both have full veto power at all times.

After I found a favorite that same day, we tossed it around for awhile. Jesse loved the meaning but we hadn't had that LOCK IT IN moment yet. Oh but it came.

So we are very excited to share with our daughter's name:

pronounced just like "Noah"

The first thing we noticed the day of the ultrasound was this kid's bicycle legs! It seriously looked like she was on a recumbent bike just pedaling her little heart out!  She has only amped up that activity since then. NEITHER of my first two moved like this. It got so hilariously crazy that I actually googled "fetal seizures" because sometimes it feels like she's quite literally having a fit in there.

the pic is blurry not because the ultrasound wand was moving, but because SHE was!

So imagine my surprise when I decided I really liked this pretty little name and went to see what it meant. It means "movement/motion" in hebrew! Um, okay that will do nicely. But I don't JUST want her to be about insane, frenetic motion--we're not looking to speak a little ADHD dervish into being (though that might be on the ticket anyway thanks to my DNA). And then Jesse found out that Noa also means "love/affection" in Japanese. Oh yes...

With typical Jesse speed and brilliance (and dashing good looks), he combined these two translations into a beautiful statement of what we want our daughter to be in her life: Love in Motion.

And obviously this name slides quite nicely into the triumvirate: Judah, Layla, and Noa.

So pretty early on we knew this was our A #1 choice. But the kicker of THIS IS HER NAME didnt happen until Jesse made a really cool family connection about a month ago. One day he said, "Hey, wasnt your grandmother's name "Genoa?" And I almost started crying! My beloved grandmother, my dad's mom, (known as Mano to me) who died when I was 11, had "Noa" built right there into her name!

looks like i inherited my gift of blinking in photos from her.

And boy was Mano love in motion. She was a sassy, classy, always-on-the-go broad whose love I felt like no one else's (that look on my face above is how I ALWAYS remember feeling around her).

My most powerful memory of her is spending the night at her house when she was dying from cancer, beautiful in her headscarf, and she heard me say something about a painful plantar's wart on my foot (geez, 11-year old Keight, have some perspective about ailments and complaints!). I will never forget her kneeling at my feet to soak my hurting foot in a epsom salt bath. If that wasnt love in motion, I'm not sure what is.

Such a poignant, Christlike moment that used to make me cry with regret after she had died, thinking I had mistreated my grandmother when she was sick, but that I now know was just one instance--in a lifetime full of them--of Mano putting her heart for others into action by serving and loving them. That is a legacy I will rejoice to see carried out in my own child.

And so we had our lockdown moment. Our baby is Noa.

We are still tinkering with middle names, the frontrunner being one that Judah of all people made up out of the blue. 

We know this is an unusual name for most people (though a friend in our small group has a sweet niece named Noa who goes to our church too, so ours won't be the very first that our church people have heard this name!) And we are already chuckling through the fun awkward silences after we tell people the name and they just so don't get it (we had this a LOT with Judah, and are much less likely to break down about it now), and the people who think that because the baby isnt born yet, the name could still be changed or that we are open to suggestions. LOL big time.

She will probably have a lifetime ahead of her saying "Without the H" and hearing the word "NO" and thinking someone is calling her. Luckily, if this gets too annoying she can just remember she is "love in motion" and not "fist in motion."