When it comes to capturing the moment it’s all about timing.

The trap we fall into is to trying to wait until the child is in the position we want & smiling before taking the photo. We call their name, shake a rattle vying for their attention and then wait til we’ve got it.

This is a mistake.

Unlike adults who can “hold a pose” (though personally I think they always look staged anyway) kids can’t “hold it”. So, you need to press snap just before the moment happens. In other words, you need to pre-empt the moment.

How in the world do you pre-empt a moment? Well, in fact that’s what you spend most of your time doing as a parent. You know your child/ren and their movements intimately. Here’s an example:

This is me waiting until she is looking at me and smiling. Note, she’s doing neither because the minute she was looking at me she started talking and thus I missed it.

This is me taking the photo while she was still lifting her head to look at me. Bang! On the money!

When you take a photo just before you get that beautiful moment of the eyes as they are lifting up. Have you been in a wedding party? Remember how the photographer asked you to look down and then up? He/she was most likley taking the photo just before you had fully lifted your face. It works every time…

What’s your top tip for photographing kids?

Come back tomorrow for my top 5 tips for photographing toddlers.

It’s going to be a big week in the edible household.

Today we are doing the Sydney-Melbourne drive with the kiddos. In one day. Your prayers for our safety and sanity are coveted!

We’ve been gone for 5 weeks so it’s going to be a week of adjusting and reacquainting ourselves with out home, friends and Melbourne family.

I’m back to (paid) work (already – yikes!) albeit only one day a week, working from home.

Bliss starts up with swimming, dance and a new kindy/child care one day a week.

Suffice to say, it will be busy and possibly a little emotional.

I’m therefore declaring this week to be photography week. Im sure I’m not the only Mum around who carries a camera in her bag 24/7 always ready to catch a special moment. Well, I’ve got a number of photography focused posts for you to help you get exactly the shot you are after especially at milestone time! I’ll be posting throughout the week and would love to hear about your back-to-school moments too!

In honour of Back to School season, I’ve also got a giveaway.

Pilot B2P is the latest addition to the eco-friendly BegreeN range and is the first refillable gel ink pen made from recycled plastic PET bottles and I have three of these packs of this range (pictured above) to giveaway, each valued at $50.

To enter:

1. Make sure you either “like” or “follow” Everything is Edible.

2. Leave a comment below this post.

3. For an extra entry, post a photo this week of a “back to school” moment – if your kids are not yet at school, or if you don’t have kids it might be a back to work moment or a back-to -the-swing-of-things-post-January-moment and then let me know in the comments below that you’ve done this.

4. For another entry share this post via twitter, FB or stumble and let me know about it.

4. The winners will be drawn, randomly next Sunday Feb 6th.

It’s estimated that about 40% of Australians have an allergy of sorts and that around 20,000 children have an anaphylactic allergy*. While neither of my kiddos have allergies, lots of our little friends do and some severely so.

And so I wonder, what’s the etiquette? Or, to put it another way, do we have a social and moral responsibility to these little ones and if so, what is it?

Not long ago I took Bliss to a Colin Buchanan concert. I was heavily preggers with Bear at the time so HH got her ready. Not only did he give her peanut butter for breakfast, he was about to pop her in the car with remains of it dripping all over her when I caught site of her. While I understand why it didn’t occur to him, in my mind Bliss was potentially a walking, talking danger to another little child. Only after a thorough wipe down & change of clothes later did we set off.

I won’t make peanut butter sandwiches or similar if we are going to a public event or public place, like a swimming pool. I’ll also avoid giving Bliss any peanuts for breakfast before such an event just in case.

Though I’ve worked with kids for a long time and therefore have this stuff is on my radar, we’re still not immune to forgetfulness. The day after Bear was born my Mum packed Bliss up for kinder and sent her with a PB sandwich. HH got lecture about it when he picked her up & it wasn’t til he got home that he twigged. We just hadn’t thought to say anything.

Am I alone in this? In a society with increase allergies how do we take some corporate responsibility for the well being of our little people? I certainly think we should, and yet am quite sure that some would consider it “not my problem”.

Do you think about allergies when you prepare food for your kids ? For those of you who are parents of child/ren with allergies , or perhaps are allergic yourself, what are your expectations of friends and of the goodwill of strangers at a public event, concert or venue? What advice would you give me to help me make life that bit easier for you, or does it not make a difference?

*source: here

Incoming search terms:

• no nuts sign
• nut free sign

Bliss has a beautiful expression these days;  “I love excited” which she calls out with big waving arms. It’s gorgeous!

This morning I was love excited at the cleverness of my two kiddos.

Miss Bliss seems to have (finally) twigged on the #2s in the toilet. After 6 months of being toilet trained during the day she has finally stopped saving her #2s for her nappies at sleep time and started taking herself to the toilet to do them. I love excited!

To add to the excitement, this morning I popped Bear on his back and wandered off to get him some clothes. A few moments later Mum called out “Louisa, did you put Bear on his back? You’d better come in here quickly”.

This is what we found,

He’d rolled onto his tummy and started wriggling. He started out on his back with his feet pointing down toward the couch on the left and ended up at the other end of the coffee table. I love excited!

We have one of those fancy digital SLR cameras that I never use because they scare me. This week, partly inspired by 365 Project and partly because the automatic setting was doing something weird I’ve been playing around with it. I’m pretty happy with the results, especially as I have no idea what I’m doing!