Posts Tagged ‘one year old’
The beginning of summer vacation…
Posted on: June 14, 2016
We’re officially on summer vacation.
YAY!
I have to say that these first few days without school have been a bit weird for me. I keep waking up early thinking I have somewhere to go.
M, on the other hand, doesn’t even miss it! She’s been fine not having to really adhere to any schedule right now.
We haven’t been doing much. My parents came to visit for a few days after the graduation and we’ve just been lazy.
We’ve been giving our brains a break from the structure of the school day and the school year. We’re waking up when we want and we are doing things (or not doing things) without a schedule.
She’s been thriving. She’s feeling refreshed.
She’ll grab a coloring book and color. She’ll grab a piece of paper, some water colors, and she’ll paint. We’ll go outside, play with sidewalk chalk, and she’ll end up writing letters and words. She’ll draw shapes and pictures.
She’s implementing all the wonderful things she’s learned from this past school year and adding it to her ‘play’ time.
I love it!
As the summer progresses, I do have some educational activity books that I would like to see her play around with.
I’ll slowly reintroduce a scheduled quiet and focus time so that she is prepared for the academic environment again. I will work with her on some of the thing she needed to improve on based on her preschool teacher’s “end of the year” evaluation.
We’ll get into all of that as the summer progresses…
But for now, we’re just going to let loose and enjoy the free time.
As for K, I know she’s enjoying the fact that she isn’t constantly being strapped into a car seat and driven around all the time. She’s also enjoying the fact that her sister is around all day!
How do you usually spend your summer vacation? How lazy do you all yourselves to get?
Sidewalk chalk
Posted on: June 12, 2016
The girls’ latest obsession is sidewalk chalk.
For $1, I purchased a pack of 12 pieces at Target. I feel like ‘Super Mom’ because this chalk can keep them occupied for at least an hour, and I didn’t pay an excessive amount of money for it!
Yup, Super Mom.
The girls love it. The back yard concrete is full of colorful drawings and lines. It’s really brought our backyard to life!
The Target chalk is great. It gets the job done. It’s chalk.
However, I found an old pack of Crayola side walk chalk that we received as a party favor years ago. I brought that out to them for them to try.
Crayola chalk is vastly different than Target chalk.
Target chalk feels like, well, chalk. Crayola chalk has a creamer and smoother feel. It’s not a dry to touch.
Target chalk makes fainter lines on the concrete. Target chalk makes chalky lines. Crayola chalk makes darker, more pigmented, lines. The colors are more vibrant and noticeable. The chalk glides on the concrete in a creamier way.
But honestly, the kids don’t care. Chalk is chalk, no matter what the brand. They are having fun with both sets and can spend a whole afternoon out there playing and drawing.
I love watching them enjoy some time outside!
Blueberry picking… take one.
Posted on: June 5, 2016
- In: Parenthood
- 3 Comments
On Memorial Day weekend, we attempted to go blueberry picking.
We had visited this berry farm two years ago and had a blast. We knew that we wanted to take the girls berry picking again once K was old enough.
The weather had been cloudy for the past week or so. Hubby said that one of the ladies at the entrance said that the clouds had possibly affected the rate at which the berries were ripening and that we might not be able to pick as much berries as we were be expecting.
She was right. We walked through rows and rows of berries that were not yet ready for picking.
I didn’t stop us from having a good time though. The mere fact that we were there was enough to make M and K very happy.
This was K’s first time at the berry farm. She loved carrying around the bucket. However, searching for ripe berries wasn’t quite as fun as filling up her bucket full of sticks!
Asides from berries, the girls loved looking at the chicken coop. There were quite a few chickens inside and they were so cute!
In the end, we didn’t find enough berries to justify a purchase. Good thing this blueberry farm doesn’t have an entrance fee. You only pay for what you pick. In our case, we hardly picked any! We ended up leaving the bucket of berries on a bale of hay, hoping someone will find it and add it to their stash of berries.
Can you tell which one was K’s bucket and which one was M’s?
We’re hoping to make our way up to the berry farm again in the next week or so. I’m hoping we can come back soon enough to collect a bucket full!
That hot mess mama..
Posted on: May 4, 2016
My kids have a gift. My kids have a talent.
My kids have the ability to make me look like I have no control over them whatsoever whenever we are in public.
No, really.
They make me look like I’m a completely ‘hot mess mama’ that can’t handle her own kids.
I don’t know how they do it.
And I swear that when I’m home, I have things seemingly under control. At least, I think I do.
Maybe it’s because I don’t have to interact with other people, that I feel like my kids behave better when we are at home?
Maybe it’s because there are more things to see, hear and experience out than at home?
Maybe it’s because I’m just fooling myself into thinking I have things under control when I’m home? That’s probably it.
K is at the age where she needs to experience everything. I’m serious when I say EVERYTHING. Today, at Costco, she felt the need to feel every package of bread that was within her reach. EVERY. SINGLE. PACKAGE.
And I get it. She’s at a very exploratory age. She uses all her senses to get a feel for the world surrounding her. But, when she refuses to sit in the shopping cart, so I compromise and allow her to walk while holding my hand, AND we have to keep up with Hubby and M ahead of us?
Hot mess.
What about when M is in dance class and I can barely stop K from wanting to get on that dance floor and join the class. Thank goodness for the large waiting area in the back of the class, but it’s a real struggle to keep her on the carpeted area instead of the dance floor. And when she refuses to cooperate, she screams. Loud. So loud the whole class can hear. And I cringe. It feels like I have no control over that kid.
Hot mess.
Or the time when we were at the music store and I was purchasing a piano book for M. I’m at the register holding K trying to pay for the book when she decides she just wants to go down. She begins to squirm and wiggle. When that doesn’t work, she screams. Loud. Loudly, in my ears. On top of that, M decides she wants to try out the bongo drums. With nodes (click here), I’m not allowed to talk over loud noises. So, I’m wrestling with K, trying to keep her in my arms. I’m begging M to please stop playing the drums. I’m wrestling with K again to stop trying to remove all the contents out of my wallet. I’m begging M AGAIN to quit playing the drums. I’m trying so hard to stay calm for the sake of my vocal chords and because I’m sure the store would not appreciate a mom having a meltdown.
I wanted to drop everything I was doing, sit on the floor and just cry. Seriously. I was THAT overwhelmed. I wanted to give up and just wait for Hubby to come and rescue me.
I felt like I lost all control.
We’ve all been there, right?
But it is what it is. I held K a little tighter. Gave her a bunch of kisses and talked her through all the frustration (which was probably more for me than anything else). M eventually listened and stopped banging the drum. I purchased the book. We went home.
The whole scenario probably lasted five minutes, but it felt like an eternity.
And in the grand scheme of things, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to parenting trials. This is all probably the easy stuff.
But c’mon! Can’t they make me look like I have everything under control sometimes? I mean, can’t they help me look like less flustered? Just do mommy a favor and stop making me look like a hot mess all the time.
I know I’m not the only one that feels this! Share your story in the comments below!
- In: Parenthood
- 1 Comment
With M starting to feel better, I can go back to sharing some of the stories that I had planned on writing about..
This one is a doozy.
We stayed in a condo while in Hawaii. My parents had their own bedroom. My little family had our own bedroom. There was a living room with a simple coffee table in the middle. The entire condo had tile floors.
M, being the typical toddler she is, was extremely curious about the entire place.
She ran around and explored ever corner that could be explored.
She explored so much she was having accident after accident. If she wasn’t tripping on something, she was running into something else!
We hadn’t even gotten through the first day and M ended up tripping and hitting the side of her forehead onto the corner of the coffee table. She cried and had a little bump. We iced that bump as soon as we could and she was fine. However, we decided to move the table into the back corner of the room where she didn’t really go into.
This wasn’t the worst of it.. so the next day….
The bed in our bedroom stood almost about 3 feet off the ground. It’s about the same height as M is, which is about 33 inches tall. As I mentioned before, the entire condo had tile floors.
There was a little voice inside of me that urged me to surround the edges of the bed with pillows before going to bed. I also found a foam sheet that I put on my side of the bed.
Earlier in the day, M had tripped on the foam sheet and hurt her little knees on the tile. I ended up folding it over itself towards the head of the bed. I didn’t open it up again that night, and it was a good thing too.
That night, we all went to bed. M fell asleep in between Hubby and I. During the middle of the night, M half-wakes up and she crawls over to my other side and snuggles up to me. It’s something she does on a regular basis at home. However, at home, she has a bed rail on the other side of her.
Half-awake myself, I knew that there was nothing on the other side to protect her so I held on to her tightly. I was going to move her back to the middle of hubby and I after a few minutes to get her back into a deep sleep again. I was going to wait because I know that if I tried to move her while half-asleep, she would just crawl back over to that other side again.
In my head, I knew I had to move her.
But something happened because she and I must have fallen into a deeper sleep because the next thing I knew, my arms opened, and she rolled.
The second she rolled out of my arms I jumped up.
I saw her fall off the bed.
It was like slow motion. I saw it all. That image still haunts me every time I think about it.
She fell off the bed, landed on the foam sheet (which wasn’t very thick to begin with), and cried. She cried like she’s never cried before. Mainly from being scared and startled, and I’m sure also from the pain.
Although I saw her fall and make contact with the ground, with the room being dim, I couldn’t tell what part of her landed first..
It was absolute commotion in the condo immediately after. She was bawling, I started crying, everyone seemed hysterical.
I called the paramedics and they looked at her and said she was fine. They asked me if she cried immediately and I said yes, that was a good sign. They also said that the fact the was consolable was a good sign.
We also ended up taking her into the emergency room, just in case. We spent a few hours sleeping in one of the emergency room beds while they monitored her.
Thank God nothing was wrong and we were able to enjoy the rest of our vacation.
When we returned home from the emergency room, Hubby and I moved the mattress onto the floor of the living room and slept that way for the rest of the trip.
I felt awful. Her falling off the bed was MY fault. Had I stayed awake enough to move her, none of this would have happened. If I just moved her back to the middle from the beginning, none of this would have happened. I cried so hard because I knew that if something went wrong, it would have been my fault.
It’s my job to protect her from injury. It’s my job to keep her safe from harm. And there I was, holding her by the edge of a bed that was over a tiled floor. My common sense should have kicked in from the start and I should have kept her in between Hubby and I, no matter how many times she’d crawl over me. It was my job to keep her from falling like that.
For the next few days after that incident, everytime I closed my eyes, all I could see was M falling. Every night, before bed, all I could see was her falling. Even now, there are times I can just close my eyes and see her falling.
I thank God all the time that nothing major happened and that she is ok. But I’m just so guilt-ridden over the entire incident.
I can’t have been the only mom that’s done this, right?!
- In: Parenthood
- 1 Comment
I’ve always been a nervous flyer. Months, weeks, days before I fly, I’m usually a nervous wreck.
Not only does the idea of flying make me nervous, but having to go through the airport, and airport security, that totally stresses me out.
Add a toddler to all that anxiety, and you have a huge mess.
M is a very active toddler. She’s nonstop. She loves space and can rarely be found sitting down in one spot for a long time..
A 5-hour flight was going to be a challenge.
I made sure to find many, many things to keep her busy.
Hubby and I bought a portable DVD player. We brought her iPad. We brought my iPad. We brought her travel doodle board.
On the flight to Hawaii, she fell asleep shortly after we took off. She slept for about an hour and a half to two hours. It was great! When she woke up, she was entertained by all the various electronic and non-electronic toys we brought.
She was so good! We were complimented by many of the other passengers around us, saying she was such a good girl.
That was a breath of relief.
But was it going to repeat on the fight back?!
When we got to the airport to go back home, M fell asleep. She finally woke up shortly before we had to board the plane.
She’d definitely not fall asleep during the 5-hour flight. I thought I was going to be in some major trouble.
But, again, she kept herself entertained by her electronic and non-electronic forms of entertainment.
THANK GOD!
Again, she was praised by the other passengers on what a good girl she was for the entire flight.
I was so thankful.
I was also so proud of her. She never felt the need to have to go running down the aisle. She never cried. She never made any obnoxious noises.
She was happy. She was patient. She took everything in stride. She was definitely a trooper.
I’m so glad that is all I have to report about the plane ride. My mind was constantly running through every worst case scenario about her behavior that I was seriously (and pleasantly) surprised when she was such a good girl.
10 days
Posted on: September 4, 2013
- In: Parenthood
- 3 Comments
On September 2nd, the family and I, including my parents, came back from a 10 day trip to Hawaii.
It was amazing.
I’ve got tons of stories to tell, and I can’t wait to start.
The last time Hubby and I were in Hawaii was 3 years ago for our honeymoon. This time, we had a family. Vacations are definitely different with a toddler.
So stay tuned to hear stories from our trip, and maybe even a couple of pictures!
Planning ahead – Halloween
Posted on: August 29, 2013
These early years of a child’s life are probably the most fun a parent can have.
I’m only saying this because all I have is a small child.. and so far, it’s been really fun!
One main reason I love being the parent of a small child is that I get to choose her Halloween costume.
She’s too young to have a preference, so I can do what I want.
Last year, we were lucky to get a Minnie Mouse costume for her birthday. That pretty much made our minds for us. She was Minnie Mouse for her first Halloween.
This year, I didn’t want to go out and spend money on a costume that she probably won’t remember wearing anyway.
So, I decided to be resourceful.
Dora the Explorer!
Oh, it’s easy! Orange shorts. Purple/Pink top. White shoes.
She already has a Dora backpack, thanks to my cousin! That can also double as her candy holder. And she’s got an inflatable Boots the Monkey, thanks to my mom!
So easy!
I decided to start early. It never fails that whenever I’m in the rush to buy a specific article of clothing, I won’t be able to find it. So starting early meant that I had time to look for it.. poof! I found it! I found it all at The Children’s Place.
So, I’m done.. I just have to wait another two months for Halloween to actually happen…
Have you started planning for Halloween?
Toddler bed..
Posted on: August 25, 2013
- In: Parenthood
- 1 Comment
With her birthday coming up so very soon, the new topic of conversation is if we are finally going to get M out of our bed and onto her own toddler bed.
If you didn’t know, M’s been in our bed since she was a newborn. When she was born, we tried to get her to sleep in the bassinet next to us. I had the hardest time falling asleep, and so did she.
I truly believe that we both were able to start sleeping through the night more comfortably because we slept together. At first she’d sleep on my chest, then once she got too big for that, she slept next to me, between a bed rail and my body.
As she’s gotten older, she’s pretty much taken over the entire bed. There are many mornings Hubby and I have woken up with a foot in our face, or an arm on our neck. Many mornings I wake up to her cuddling up to me, hugging my arm as if I’m her teddy bear. Those are the moments I love the most.
And honestly, I think I’m the one that’s the most attached to the idea of us co-sleeping. I think I’m the one going through the separation anxiety, and we’re only THINKING of getting her into her own bed.
Our bedroom is big enough to have a toddler bed next to us. So the initial thoughts are to set up the toddler bed next to our bed. I can lie with her until she falls asleep, and we are still close enough that if she needs to come back to bed, she can.
I just don’t know… she’s my baby! She’s my cuddle-partner.
She’s growing up and I need to start accepting that fact.. but can’t I just keep her with me a little longer?
How old did you stop co-sleeping with your child?
At that age…
Posted on: August 24, 2013
When people ask me, “how old is your child?” I always answer in months. I get the same response from other parents. It’s like “parent code.”
It’s always been wierd for me, especially since M is so close to 2, to say that she’s only one. For some reason, saying her age in months just makes more sense.
This topic has been discussed in this blog post, click here.
Now that M is so much closer to two, when people ask her age, I say “Two next month.”
Ok.. it’s better than saying “twenty three months.” That’s such a mouthful and by the time you hit the twenty months or so, math is pretty much involved in determining exactly how old the child is.
We all know that I hate math.. and if you didn’t know it before, you do now!
I think after a child hits 2 year old, the mindset changes. I don’t usually hear other parents address their child’s age as “twenty-six months” or “twenty-nine months..” Maybe I just don’t hear it.
Either way, I think once M turns two, I will probably addressing her as such.
What’s your take on this whole age thing?!
Living life in the carpool lane.. 