1 Year Flies By

Ok the year in review.

Now that we're 1 we're off formula and onto milk. We're walking around like crazy. We're into everything. We love eating and trying new foods. We love sledding in the snow. And we love helping mom and dad do whatever they are doing!

We got rid of bottles as soon as she turned 1. We switched to sippy cups and never looked back. It was no big deal really. The only big deal has been constipation from the milk. So we've put N on Chia Seeds and Probiotics which has been super helpful and more natural than what the Dr. suggested, a chemical laxative.

We recently had a very good friend build us a helping tower. This is an awesome, kinda large, tower that N can stand on and be counter height to help in the kitchen! She loves to help wash the dishes and make pancakes for breakfast. And my new mom advice is LET THEM HELP. They want to help, they want to do what you're doing and when they play they mirror your actions anyway, so let them do it! N loves to make pancakes, she mixes up the mix for us and tastes the first ones off the griddle to make sure they're up to snuff. She also loves making pizza and rolling out the dough (and getting flour everywhere).

N's Helper Tower!

Making Cookies

Rolling out the pizza dough!

That brings me to my next top tip: DON'T BE AFRAID TO GET MESSY. Its kind of a pain, I know, to have to deal with the clean up, but that's something they can help with too, after all that's part of the process! As an artist, I'm constantly making a mess, I mean, it's the nature of my work! I've never painted without getting paint in places that I didn't want it. And I think its really liberating for one to just make a terrible mess! N loves to paint with momma, draw in my studio, or make a mess making pizza with the flour and dough. Either way she's learning and exploring and letting loose! We try to have N help with clean up too. Once we clean her up of course.

Which brings me to my third tip: Chores. Again let them help. We have a dog (as you may know from my previous post about dogs before kids) And N's first chore is feeding him. She LOVES to feed him and in the beginning, well, she kinda was terrible at it and got the food everywhere (let them get messy and make a mess right?) and she couldn't scoop it and she couldn't aim the scoop, but now that we've been doing it for about 10 months, she's gotten so great at it. In fact the dog loves when she feeds him because she scoops way  more food out for him that my husband or I do. She's honed her fine motor skills with the scooping and the gross motor skills with getting the food and brining it over to the bowl.

So in recap, 1 year (the whole year) has been amazing, N's learned so much, and taught us so much. I leave you with this video of N doing her first chore!

Beautiful Moments

Well it's been a while since I've last posted. I guess being a new mom kinda keeps you busy, so writing post on the blog get put on the back burner. I was thinking the other day about a wonderful moment I had with N and thought about how I haven't written on the blog at all. I like to share the good moments because in the beginning it was such a whirlwind, you can't really step back and enjoy it all and how amazing it is to have a kid!

Friday, I picked N up from my mom's house, who was watching her for the day, and now that she's 20 months she is very communicative. She loves listening to Puff the Magic Dragon whenever we're in the car and she also loves to dance. So Friday she asked for Puff as we left Nana's house. So I put on Puff thinking I'm going to hear this song 6 times before I get home, when she starts to say 'dance' and put her hands up in the air. So I put on her favorite dance song "Say Hey (I Love You)" by Michael Franti. And we proceed to dance the whole way home. I'm sure the other cars around us thought I was crazy, but what a great way to end the week going into a long weekend!

Another beautiful moment was when I showed N about splashing in puddles after a rain storm. We took a morning walk along a quite road on Cape Cod after an evening rain and I jumped with one foot into a puddle. The look on her face was priceless as she proceeded to do the same thing. She jumped and giggled as she got completely soaked! Now, of course, every time she sees a puddle she runs right into it!

Summer is just about over but one summer beautiful moment was N experiencing running through the sprinkler. We took her to the North End in Boston to visit her Uncle who lives there and it was a hot day, so we went over to the fountains that came out of the ground and let her run through them. She had so much fun. The squeals and giggles abound. So that week we hooked up our sprinkler and turned her loose on that. I think she had more fun in Boston but she seemed to love running through the water!

I guess my point is that it seems to be the simple things that get the biggest smiles. I have found that there is no need to take them here or there or spend lots of money on toys as they like the box the best or time waiting in lines to see giraffes at the zoo because they love playing with the worms in the garden more. Everything is a new experience for them to learn and grow from. I have to keep telling myself this because I have friends that take their kids here and there to give them all these experience with new things and I think that I'm not doing enough with my kid in terms of showing them the world and I get worried that my kid won't be as smart, or well off as the other kids. But I'm hoping that N will be more grounded and creative and interested and intrigued with the world around her as we spend time exploring the small things that are all around us, like the worms and the empty boxes.