I really dig scrapbooking. I like designing page layouts and cropping photos and coming up with witty captions. The thing I like the most about scrapbooking, though, is the sense of accomplishment that comes from having my photos all organized and orderly. Unfortunately, many mamas don’t have the time to devote to scrapbooking that they did once upon a time.

Funny how now that you have the best reason to scrapbook, you also have the least amount of time to do so.

Shortly after BabyHacks made her arrival, I accidentally found a great solution. While perusing the clearance bin at Baby Depot (they have some great clearance items at Baby Depot, by the way), I came across the coolest pop-up scrapbook. Every page was pre-decorated with room for up to eight photos per two-page spread.

Sure, I’m kind of bummed that I don’t get to do my own creative layout, BUT the reality is that I can actually get this kind of scrapbook done before the baby goes off to her Senior prom. I can always create a scrapbook from scratch later on, but in the meantime, the pre-decorated ones mean that I’ll totally look like I had my act together and got some photos scrapped.

Assuming I ever actually get the pictures printed and placed in the book, that is.

(Mama Hack: n. A tip or technique that reduces the chaos in a mama’s life and makes it easier to manage or more convenient. Because no one looks back and says, “I just didn’t think to take pictures of my first baby.”)

I am in love with my digital camera. I’m a new mom, so how could I not be completely addicted to it? My poor daughter thinks she’s Brittney Spears or Paris Hilton with the way the flashbulbs pop everywhere she goes. I affectionately refer to myself as “the Mama-razi.” (My husband is, of course, the Papa-razi.)

At any given time, my camera has pictures of BabyHacks in no less than a dozen different outfits, generally doing almost exactly the same thing. “See how she’s waving ‘hello’ in this one and ‘goodbye” in the next one?”

It’s great how the picture review feature on our digital cameras literally allow us to start reminiscing an event before it’s actually over. “Do you remember 30 seconds ago when you did that cool thing…”

While I get to enjoy the photos over and over, there is a real downside to the digital age: I never have to get my film developed. I am instantly gratified by seeing the image on my camera’s screen. I might even get as far as uploading it to my laptop so I can post it on my LiveJournal, Facebook, or Flickr accounts. These options are great, but they don’t do much for my parents and grandparents who aren’t online. It’s also put a major crimp in my scrapbooking plans.

We recently discovered how to solve this problem without even making an extra trip out of the house. It turns out that various retailers now allow you to upload or email your digital photos to them, and they’ll get them all printed out for you. We like to send ours to Costco because they can even get them printed in an hour. So, if we know we’re going to go do some shopping, we can send a few files in before leaving home, and just pick them up when we check out.

The best part, though, is that you can send pictures to stores all over the world and have other people pick them up. We live in the Northwest but were able to have our digital photos printed out in Florida at my grandparents’ local Walgreens. I chose to pay for them online, but they could have also paid when they picked the photos up. I’ve heard that for an extra few bucks, you can even have them delivered.

So, without even licking an envelope, I can now ensure that GreatGrandmaHacks gets to see her progeny’s progeny’s progeny in dozens of different outfits waving both “hello” and “goodbye.”

(Mama Hack: n. A tip or technique that reduces the chaos in a mama’s life and makes it easier to manage or more convenient. Because no one looks back and says, “I really needed to run more errands.”)

I recently started writing about a house-cleaning Mama Hack and ended up on the subject of my delight over discovering the Baby Bjorn Carrier. I’d like to pick back up on that earlier train of thought today.

I previously mentioned that while most people’s houses get messier when they bring a baby home, mine actually got cleaner. This is due to the fact that my baby wanted to be in constant motion, and one of the few things that could keep us moving around the house with her in the carrier was for me to clean.

It was actually a little bit awesome.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that the toddler years are going to bring about ever more messes, but I’m really appreciating the fact that for the first time in my life, I probably wouldn’t be completely mortified if my grandmother dropped by unexpectedly. (I’d be shocked, as she lives all the way across the country, but I wouldn’t be mortified.)

Once I got in the habit of cleaning, it got to be a bit easier. Still, there are times when I just don’t feel like it. That’s when I pull out one of my very favorite Mama Hacks. I call it “Three Things.” Whatever room I’m in, I decide that I’m just going to do three things, and then I can move on with my day.

Let’s say I’m in the kitchen. I can choose any three things to do in that room. Perhaps I want to do something small like put a glass in the dishwasher. On the other hand, I might be willing to put in a little more effort and actually sweep the entire floor. If I empty out the sink drain, then I have accomplished three tasks, and I am officially off the hook for the time being.

No matter which three things I choose to do now, the result is that I don’t have to do them later. If I manage to just do three things every time I walk into the kitchen, I can have the darned thing clean before lunchtime without really even trying. Even if I don’t get it all the way done, the fact of the matter is that if I’ve been in the kitchen four times that morning, there are twelve things done in there that wouldn’t have been taken care of otherwise.

I sometimes take this a step further by doing three things in one room and making sure that the final one takes me into another room where I will do another three things. For example, my third task in the kitchen might be to return the scissors to the drawer in the living room. Once in the living room, I’ll find three things to do in there. Maybe it’s silly, but just keeping myself moving from room to room rather than feeling like I must get one completely clean RIGHT NOW makes a huge difference.

Of course, your attention span might be a little longer than . . . ooh, something shiny . . .

Read more reviews of the Baby Bjorn Carrier

(Mama Hack: n. A tip or technique that reduces the chaos in a mama’s life and makes it easier to manage or more convenient. Because no one looks back and says, “There just wasn’t enough to do.”)

So, things are about to get exciting around here. This week, BabyHacks is starting on solid foods. And by “solid foods” I mean flavored sludge. I am both excited and repelled at the same time. I’m excited because I can’t wait to watch her experience the flavors that the world has to offer. I’m repelled because I think it’s going to be messy and time consuming, and it’s going to result in much stinkier diapers.

Since I’m a big fan of Mama Hacks to make life easier, I’m already planning ahead for how to make this whole process work the best. I want to make as much of baby food as possible, because I want to know what’s going into my baby. Also because I’m insane.

What I’ve discovered is that I don’t have to make fresh vegetable purees every single day. Instead, I’m steaming a bunch of produce at once, sending it through the food processor, and then freezing the resulting mush in ice cube trays. Each section in the tray holds about an ounce of puree.

Once the baby food is frozen, I can transport it into reusable containers marked “green beans,” “carrots,” or whatever. At dinner time, I’ll grab a couple of cubes out of the container and heat them up in the baby food warmer. If all goes according to plan, this will take a lot of the work out of making daily meals, and I’ll only need to rely on prepackaged baby food when we’re traveling.

(Mama Hack: n. A tip or technique that reduces the chaos in a mama’s life and makes it easier to manage or more convenient. Because no one looks back and says, “I wish it would have been more complicated.”)

PapaHacks, BabyHacks, and I have been on the road this week, and it’s really been a lot of fun. We traveled to Seattle and stayed just a couple of blocks from the Space Needle. PapaHacks was in a class all week, but the baby and I walked all over the city and had a ton of fun. We did the Children’s Museum, the Seattle Aquarium, Pike’s Place Market, the Pacific Science Center, and more.

I have to admit that the stroller was the ultimate Mama Hack this week. We have the kind where the car seat snaps right in so that the baby could face me as we trounced around the Emerald City. There’s a space under the car seat where I was able to store the Baby Bjorn (which I already raved about in an earlier article), so I could get the baby out of the stroller when she got fussy but was still able to have my hands free to push the stroller along.

In addition to the fact that I could use the basket underneath to hold my purchases, I was mostly relieved that it allowed me a way to strap the squirmy little baby down while I hauled us from the Seattle Center to the Waterfront and back. It also allowed the little one to drift off from time to time, so despite the fact that her entire world was off kilter while living in a hotel and spending most of her days outside, her nap schedule actually stayed fairly consistent.

The downside was that the stroller is pretty big, and it made the crowds a little harder to navigate. I’m really curious as to how a more compact stroller would have fared. Anyone have a suggestion for MamaHacks on what kind to look for?

(Mama Hack: n. A tip or technique that reduces the chaos in a mama’s life and makes it easier to manage or more convenient. Because no one looks back and says, “The more I carried my baby, the lighter she seemed!”)