New baby on the way

As usual, it's been a while since I've updated. Not much has been going on with my photography since I finished my last show in the Fall. I've been quite preoccupied with a number of things, mostly centered around big life change...sometime next month, I'm going to be a father.

My wife and I have been hoping to have kids for a few years now, and in early November we found out she's pregnant. Since then, it's just been a whirlwind of things to do. There are so many new things to learn, long before the baby even arrives.

As a photographer, when choosing a camera I read lots of reviews and pour over the specs sheets. I know exactly what sort of stuff I'm looking for, which features are bad and which are good, what sort of gotcha's you can run into, etc. The processes of reviewing a new camera for a potential purchase is quite easy for me. The same holds true of most major things I have to buy (TVs, computer parts, stereos, cars, etc). Now, when it comes to having a kid, I have that same sense of "I need to make sure I choose the right item to buy" that I have when buying a camera. Only this time, I have absolutely no experience buying any of this stuff, and all of the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision is missing.

So here I am trying to buy a crib, and I'm at a complete loss to know what features are available, which are desirable, which ones seem nice in theory but are essentially useless in practice, etc. It's a matter of starting at square one, and doing all the research not only on the product, but on how to research the products to begin with. Quite a daunting task. Then I have turn right around to do the same thing with a car seat, and a stroller, and a host of other things.

Then on top of that, there are a ton of other choices to make. When setting up the baby registries, you've got to make hundreds of decisions, and all in very short order. You can't research every single item so you just have to make gut decisions. How many bottles of each size and how many nipples should I put on the registry? Accessory X seems really cool, but will it really make a difference and be worth spending $20 more on than accessory Y? Perhaps Y will be just as good and then the person buying it will be able to get me 2 items on my list instead of 1.

All together, just buying/choosing things is a very daunting task...at least for someone like me, who is looking to not only make really good decisions but to not go unnecessarily overboard (as tends to happen when children are involved). And then there's all the other things beside that, such as painting/decorating, preparing the house, learning what you are going to need to know once the baby is born, etc.

So even before the baby is born, the first half of this year has been all "baby, baby, baby". Thus it has been hard to focus on much of anything else. Now, as we enter the last 4 to 8 weeks, we're starting to hit a bit of a break (or maybe you could say a calm before the storm). We've got everything pretty much done. The baby shower is this weekend, so after that we just need to go out and buy up whatever wasn't bought for us. We've only got a couple hours of birthing classes left. We've got a really good idea how things are supposedly going to work out. So hopefully, it's just going to be a bit of waiting and catching our breath one last time before the baby comes.

As far as photography, I've got 1 show later this month, and then nothing until 1 show in the middle of August, and then a few in September. It's going to be a lighter-than-usual show schedule for me this year. Usually I like to prepare new works to add to my portfolio each year. This year I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that (perhaps I can add something from my Yellowstone trip if I find the time/energy). For the most part, I think this year my art shows are going to be on a bit of cruise control, and I'll just try to make it through them with a minimum of changes and effort. Then next year hopefully I can pick up some of the shows I love (but had to drop this year due to the timing), rework my product line, update the display, etc.