And then I played a music video for her on my computer. She watched it five straight times. And absolutely screamed when I took her away. Dogs, bright colors, and music she can bop her head to. In the world of Brooklynn, this is one of the greatest things ever.

Please excuse the messiness of the desk. It will get cleaned soon, I assure you. Brooklynn’s eye level is now just above the desktop and anything within arms reach is starting to go in to the trash can.

The group is Ok Go—I posted one of their last videos here. This one is a keeper as well. Check it out for yourself:

Ok Go – White Knuckles

There is one animal that is not a dog. 50 bonus points to you if you spot it the first time watching.

Along with the letter, I also include a few selected photos that either illustrate some point I’m talking about or that were just too good (in my opinion) to pass up. In addition, I also post other photos that were never featured on this site. Sometime during the last month (or perhaps just yesterday), we reached over 1,000 pictures of Brooklynn.

I typically print one or two of these pictures out every month and hang them on the wall of my cubicle at work. I’ve had several people comment that the photos are really good and a few ask about what type of camera I use and how I get such wonderful pictures.

(Full disclosure: many people walk by my office without commenting on the pictures, so perhaps most of my co-workers think the pictures are horrible and subscribe to the “If you can’t say something nice…” policy.)

I tell them that I take lots of pictures, choose the good ones, and do a little post-processing on the computer.

All of these are true. I can’t make the claim of every day anymore, but we have some sort of photo of Brooklynn on all but a handful of days in her life. I don’t get a “good” picture everyday. She’s at the age where she’s too young to understand the concept of posing and sitting still for a picture but she’s old enough to want any thing electronic that we might be holding. This leads to a lot of me backpedaling while trying to keep her in frame and in focus. I’ve also ended up with more than a few fingerprints on my lenses over the past months since walking has come in to vogue.

I typically end up with 40 to 60 pictures up on the web in any given month. This usually equates to between 10 and 20 percent of the pictures I actually take. There are a fair number that are poorly lit, out-of-focus, or more than a little unflattering. I’m not a pro photographer and I don’t work in a strictly controlled studio. Luckily, digital cameras have changed the world for home photography. Want to take 100 pictures of your kid sitting on the steps in one afternoon? Go for it. No film. No waiting for development time. No paying for doubles and then wondering what the pictures that you didn’t get back looked like.

So, I take lots of pictures and try to pick the best ones. And then I play with color, exposure, and cropping on the computer. I’ve changed my workflow a little over the years moving away from Photoshop and image editing programs and more toward software geared specifically to photographers. I currently use Lightroom, and when you see black and white or odd coloring, it’s because I thought it looked good. Even just a simple bump in contrast and a small vignette makes photos “pop” a little.

It takes me couple hours to run through a month worth of photos, do my processing, title, and upload them. Being able to look back to photos whenever I want to makes it all worth it. Hopefully you like it too.

And once in a while, I get a little help with the photography. Most of the time, when you see Brooklynn smiling and looking just off to the side of the camera, it means that Rhiannon was standing right over my shoulder to get her attention. Sometimes, she even picks up the camera, and often, these are my favorite pictures.

TV. Screen Time. Digital Media Consumption. Cell Phones. Twitter. Heck, personal websites.

Namely, how much technology is enough technology, and how much screen time is too much screen time for a child.

Everything I’ve ever read on the subject of screen time seems to refer back to some American Association of Pediatrics (and no, I have never looked up the exact study or recommendation that is all too often referenced). It states that for kids under 2, screen time should be limited to a minimum.

Period.

No maximum of XXX hours per day or week, no mention of eating dinner in an Applebee’s and having 13 TVs playing sports going. No mention of the 100-inch screen in your home theater being any worse than the 4” screen on your iPhone, even if they both play same the cartoons.

I take that to mean that the AAP feels that no amount of screen time is appropriate. That time should be spent nurturing your child with enriching activities, like playing with old school wooden blocks and reading Mother Goose nursery rhymes and possible having a discussion on the electromagnetic properties of inert gases and why ionization of said gases and subsequent photon emission is so vital in the working of compact florescent lightbulbs. (Not that I would actually talk about that last one with a one year old. That would be ludicrous.)

Well, I have news for the AAP. We have a TV in our house and we even have it on from time to time. Sometimes Brooklynn is around. We don’t watch entire half-hour shows with her, nor do we ever let the TV act as a pseudo-babysitter, as in, hey look at the flashing colorful screen!

She likes football (bright colors?) and short bits of cartoons with songs, but mostly, her attention span doesn’t last longer than a few minutes at any one time and she wanders off to do something else. We don’t encourage her to sit and watch anything and we do all of our movie watching when she is asleep.

We don’t have cable or satellite television, and considering we watch maybe around 5 hours of live TV each week, it doesn’t seem like we are missing much. We do have an internet connection and both Rhiannon and I spend a fair amount of time in front a computer screen.

Brooklynn loves our computers. I showed her a few music videos on YouTube a few days ago, and she watched and danced her little head-bopping dance along with them. Is this screen time? I would say yes. But really, she just loves our computers because she wants to bang on the keyboards. As in, BANG, how long until I permanently damage your computer, Dad?

I guess we follow the AAP guidelines more out of lack of opportunity than any real conscious effort. If we notice Brooklynn zoning out in front of the TV, that means it’s time to turn it off and do something else. And if we leave her in front of computer for too long, something bad will happen to that computer.

Good parenting by default. Although, if there were still Saturday morning cartoons like when I was growing up, I might be right there watching them with her.

It has taken a little work in the background to get everything ready, and I’m sure I’ll still find small glitches here and there to work out.  If you see anything badly broken, let me know.

-The Management