18 months

It's crazy how quickly time flies as an adult, and even more so as a parent. My little baby is now an 18-month-old toddler who looks for ways to make us laugh, sneaks into her room to get her paci out of her bed, and runs around at full speed as much as she possibly can. She loves to play with her friends at day care and isn't quite sure about sharing her toys with younger kids at church.

• Weight: 21.38 pounds (9th percentile), length: 31 inches (55th percentile)
• 18-month well child check went well! She paraded around the exam room while we waited for the doctor and was pretty cooperative for the exam. She is a little shy around people she doesn't know, but tends to warm up pretty quickly. She cried when they gave her the vaccine but it's her last one (aside from annual flu shots) until she's 4!
• She is a fantastic sleeper when she's in her routine. Every night we put her pajamas on, read 3 books, brush her teeth, and say goodnight. But outside of her routine (in the car, at church, etc.) is a no go and she will fight sleep. 
• We got rid of the paci during the day, so she only gets it at night in her crib. She was totally fine with it until the last week or so, and she has started taking it out of her crib and holding it SO tight when we try to take it. When we do get it away from her, she has a meltdown. I plan to take it away completely soon but I don't have the heart to do it yet because she loves it so much.
• She started walking at the end of October and has completely mastered that skill. Now she's on to running.
• T is a total chatterbox. She tries to say so many different words and right now can say about 35-40 different ones. She learns new ones every day and also fills in the silence with a lot of stuff we can't understand.
• Her favorite toys right now are my Beanie Babies from when I was younger. We found the two cat ones that my parents saved for me, along with a whole box of other animals (with the tags carefully preserved in case they were ever worth a lot, ha ha!) and she likes to have those in the car. She also loves petting Sully, and started saying Sully a little while ago. She now thinks all cats are named Sully.
• Her hair is getting so long. It's funny to look back on pictures when she was so bald. When her hair is wet, her bangs go to the top of her nose. She really needs a haircut but I'm nervous about how she will do with it.
• She is still in size 3 diapers. We bumped her up to size 4 when we ran out of our last pack of size 3, but they were too big and stuck up way above her pants. So still size 3 for now!

Being her mom is the hardest and most wonderful thing I've ever done!

Work-Life Balance.

Does anyone have the answer to what work-life balance really means? I'm striving (unsuccessfully, thus far) to find it. I work full-time for a software company, plus I do freelance writing for two different companies. When I started freelancing in 2009, I had just graduated from college and was desperately trying to make ends meet in my first taste of actual real life (paying rent). I had a brand new English degree and some debt I'd accumulated while in school, so I searched craigslist for jobs that would supplement my income. I sent my resume to hundreds of faceless addresses, so I was surprised to hear back from one, especially when they wanted to schedule a phone interview.

In hindsight, I'm lucky that I wasn't taken for everything I have (which wouldn't have been much). The company asked for my bank account information for the direct deposit and hired me on the spot. I naively handed it over, but thankfully, they were legit and I've been working for them ever since. In the beginning, the assignments were sparse and the topics were strange. I remember writing articles about poker tournament winners and why gift cards make great holiday gifts. In the first year, I probably made a total of $500, but that was still exciting. For the first time in my life, I was getting paid to write. And that was something.

In the second and third years of freelancing, work was spotty and I'd be thrilled every time I got some. The company started a Facebook page for the freelance community, and the top question asked was "how can I get more work?" Writers dwindled and before long, my plate was filling up with assignments. I made a habit of never turning down work, unless I was on a marked out vacation, because I always wanted to be one of the top writers who received the assignments. I'm not actually sure if this helped, but now I get so much work, I am often swimming.

At some point, I hope to transition from a full-time employee to a full-time mother, but I want to keep one foot in the career that I love by continuing to freelance. But at this point, I feel like I'm working more than I realized I would. When I get home from work, I pick up my daughter from day care and we have a few hours to spend together. Part of that time is spent making dinner, part of it is spent doing some exercise (a necessity for my mental health), and then she goes to bed around 7:30. Weekends offer more time to spend together, although I find that I am less patient because I'm still learning what she needs when she screams or how to get her to eat more than two bites of a meal.

And with so much work coming in, much of of the "free time" I have in the evenings and on weekends is spent writing. If you've ever clicked on an article with "Top # Places to Eat" or "The # Best Nissans for Families," there's a good chance I wrote it. Other businesses request content on specific topics to post on their websites, blogs, etc. and I write that content. I also write car reviews for models I've never even seen and describe entrees at restaurants in state I've never visited.

I've gone down a rabbit hole with this post. My overall message is that I don't have a good balance because I work a lot. And I'm afraid that my daughter is suffering for it. But I'm not sure how to change it right now, because work is what keeps us stable and comfortable, with food on our table and warmth in our home.

Summer Love.

I LOVE the summer. There are so many things about it that make me so happy- swimming, long days, barbecuing everything we eat, having picnics outside, and lots of ice cream. It's always a little bit of a heartbreak when it's coming to an end, because I feel like I didn't do enough to take advantage of the summer. Last summer was really different because I had just had T at the end of June so I was recovering from the c-section and not really wanting to take her out to pools, water parks, etc. So this summer was a lot more fun!

Last weekend we went to Cowabunga Bay, a local water park, and had a blast. Chris' parents joined us and loved seeing Thea splash around. She is such a little water baby now, which is crazy because when we first switched her into the full-size bathtub, she screamed and freaked out for a couple weeks straight. Now she can't get enough, splashing and playing and crawling through the shallow parts. We took her on one slide and it scared her, but hopefully we can squeeze in a couple more trips to the water park to get her more used to them before the summer is officially over.

We haven't gone to any parks with her yet, but she's finally at the age now where I think she would have fun. Our neighborhood has a little playground within walking distance so we will plan to take her there so she can crawl and climb to her heart's content. She also loves to swing!

T is also talking up a storm these days! A lot of what she says still is hard to understand, but my heart swelled with pride when she learned how to say cat! Now she says it over and over when she sees Caesar or Sully and it is honestly one of my absolute favorite things she has ever done. She still doesn't want to walk- although when we were on vacation last weekend with Chris' family, his mom and sister said she took a couple steps on her own while we were gone shopping. So that is crazy, and it could be here before we know it. Other words she says are: wow, uh-oh, no (that's a fun one, especially when I'm trying to get her to eat), and this.

We have loved our current child care situation for while C and I are working, but unfortunately it didn't quite work out as well as we hoped, so we found a new one and she will start there on Monday. She went there for two days in July when my babysitter was out of town, and it went really well, so I'm hoping it will be a smooth transition and the last time we have to switch her care provider!

One year old.

   Pregnancy seems to last for a long time. Between morning sickness, feeling tired literally all. the. time., aches and pains, an expanding belly, and not being able to sleep by the end of it, it seems to take a lot longer than 40 weeks. 

   Once the baby arrives, it seems like the exact opposite is true. At the beginning the nights seem very long when you aren't getting a lot of sleep, but the weeks fly by and all of the sudden you have a one-month old, two-month old, etc. Now I have a one year-old and it is absolutely crazy to me. I remember the day she was born so vividly. I also remember the amazing things she learned to do (her first smile, her first giggle, the first time she said "Dada" and "Mama", when she rolled over, and the first time she crawled). 

   

   We celebrated her birthday with a zoo-themed party, which was a lot of fun. We ate sandwiches, lion veggies, cheetah chips and dip, kangaroo kabobs (fruit), and camel cake and cookies, and drank jungle juice and water from the watering hole. (I am not this creative. The ideas all came from here). A lot of our family and friends were able to celebrate Thea's birthday and we had a fantastic time. We hosted it at a pavilion in Murray Park and gave bubbles and finger puppets as favors, which the other kids in attendance loved.

   We also had the 12-month check up!

• Weight: 17.2 lbs (4^th percentile) – working on giving her more protein and fat (avocado, butter, peanut butter on bread/crackers, etc.)
• Length: 29.2 inches (44th percentile)
• Wearing all 9 month clothes, finally! Her feet are still really small and she is only just getting into 3-6 month shoes. But baby/kid shoes sizes are very confusing.
• Size 3 diapers
• Her hair is very light and coming in thicker. It's long enough in the back for pigtails but she isn't fond of us trying to wrap an elastic around her hair.
• Six teeth! Two on the bottom and four on the top!
• In the last week she has struggled to go to bed at night. We follow the routine (bath, books, bottle, brush teeth, bed) but she screams for a few minutes when we put her down. I usually go back in a couple times to give her the rest of her bottle and rock her and sing to her and she'll go to sleep. Once she's asleep, she will usually stay asleep for 10-11 hours.
• Loves almost all food we give her. She spit out Thai masaman curry (her loss) and kidney beans from a three-bean salad but likes pretty much everything else.
• She can almost walk on her own. She does it really well if we hold her hands, but she still walks on her tiptoes.
• She was getting too long for the baby bathtub so we transitioned her into the regular tub with just a little bit of water and lots of toys. She screamed the first few times because she seemed scared and unsteady. She now lays down on her tummy in the tub and kicks and plays with toys and is much happier. We also started playing music for the first part of her bath as she gets used to being in there, which helped a TON.

Changing times...

In preparation for my office moving downtown, I started looking for someone who could take care of Thea a little closer to our home. I was driving about an hour each way to take her to my mom, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law, so it made for long days for both me and Thea. I found a woman who lives down the street from us who is a stay-at-home-mom of four and was interested in taking care of Thea during the days. We had dinner with their family a couple of weeks ago, and they are fabulous! She is sweet, loving, and nurturing, and her three daughters are all older than Thea and were immediately interacting with her and making her laugh. The youngest is a boy and is a few months younger than Thea.

Both Chris and I felt good about the change, although it was bittersweet because T was in such good hands with our family. But adding another 1/2 hour to the commute each way was going to put us in the car for three hours a day, and that just didn't seem fair (or fun) for Thea. So we decided to move forward, and started with the new family on May 16. The first week went very well, but this week has been a little tougher. She started crying when I drop her off, which is absolutely breaking my heart. I feel awful when she cries and reaches for me, and there isn't much I can do other than give her a hug and a kiss and promise her I'll be back soon.

There are a million reasons why she could be struggling. Change is hard on babies, not just adults. She has three new teeth poking through on the top. Maybe she's having a growth spurt, which is why she is so tired all the time. I wake her up every morning to go to their house. I even read about developmental changes that occur between 9 and 12 months where babies experience separation anxiety because they haven't yet learned that the people they love will always come back.

There are things I can do to hopefully ease her stress. When we play, I can play hide and seek with her toys so she learns that they do come back. I can talk to her every day and every night about the plan for the next day, getting her more used to the routine. In my mind, because she doesn't talk yet, I think she doesn't understand me. But this isn't true, because when I give her a warning about doing something I am trying to teach her not to do (like hit the keyboard on my laptop), she looks and seems to know what I am saying. So I can reassure her multiple times a day that I will always come back.

It's not a trust issue with the babysitter. I know she is wonderful and that this is more of just a difficulty with change than anything else. Thea is also used to having 1:1 attention from her caregivers ,while this mother has several other kids pulling her attention in different directions, so I imagine that is hard on her too. But I also think that these things are good for her to learn, as it helps her understand sharing, patience, and other important values, even at such a young age.

I wish that the solution could be for me to stay home full-time. But with Chris in school for at least another year and a half, this just isn't an option for our family. It's hard every day to leave my sweet baby in the hands of someone else. But I am thankful for people that I trust and who give her love and care when I have to be away from her.

I am exhausted.

It has been absolutely crazy for me during the past few weeks. My coworker went out on maternity leave, so I have been doing a lot to help cover for her. She is the coordinator in our little marketing department and we have all felt her absence, but I am glad she gets to have some time away with her new little babe. Oh, and we also have four major events in a 1.5 week period, and she is the main event coordinator for everything we do. So I have been learning a LOT about event planning, which has been crazy, stressful, and overwhelming, but also a good learning experience. Things I have learned:

-Never use a vendor that requires daily phone calls to stay on top of orders.



-Don't assume that things are done or that people got your emails/voicemails/both.

-Accept that fact that no matter what food you order, some people won't like it. Related: there are a LOT of gluten-free vegetarians in the world.

-When you think something is finalized, plan to keep working on for at least three more rounds of edits.

-Don't take on any freelance work when you are in the middle of four big events at work.

I'm sure there's more, but my brain is so fried that I can't remember what day it is.

Technology

It really is amazing to me how these little babies come into a world that is filled to the brim with technology. I am a huge fan of technology. I use my phone to stay in touch with friends and family all over the country (FaceTime is the actual best thing ever), I am able to work remotely because of my laptop and internet connection at least one day a week and spend more time with my baby, and even can keep myself entertained while exercising or in my downtime.

Thea is fascinated by technology too. At first she didn't really get it. We went to San Diego last month and took a later evening flight in hopes that she would fall asleep, but that was not the case.

(Side note: babies who are in good sleep routines and have good habits are GREAT until you try to shake up their routine, like take them on a plane or to church, and they can't sleep in a dark room in their cribs. But anyway,)

So in a desperate attempt to keep her from screaming, we pulled out Chris' iPad to see if she would be distracted by Baby Einstein videos or anything....and all she wanted was to put the whole tablet in her mouth. So that didn't work.

But she does love music (as mentioned in my previous post), especially The Wheels on the Bus song. So one day when we were on the way home, I had just picked her up from one of her babysitters after work, she was screaming and we were stuck in traffic. I found a version of that song on YouTube and she was riveted. She instantly stopped crying and was quietly listening all the way home.

I also love to work out, and I have both an elliptical and treadmill in my basement. She used to sit in her swing and be entertained by that, but now that she is getting bigger and busier, she wants to be down and crawling. I know that regular exercise helps with my mental and physical health, helping me to be the best mama I can be, so I make it a priority. If Chris isn't home to watch her, I let her watch one of these nursery rhyme/singing videos on YouTube while I work out.

In the last couple of weeks, she has also become fascinated by the TV remote, my phone, and my laptop that I use for work. When I'm working from home and she is crawling around the family room, she comes right to the ottoman where I have my computer and starts trying to "type" on the keyboard (AKA hitting it and adding a bunch of extra letters to whatever I'm writing :) ) She also will find the remote if we have left it within her reach.

I'm certainly not against TV, as both my husband and I watch quite a bit of it, but I do want to limit how much she gets every day. I also think it is also a balancing act, ensuring that she has plenty of interactive toys and books so she isn't driven by TV or playing on my phone at every chance she gets.

It will be so interesting to see how her fascination with technology grows and changes along with the industry.

(Side note: I am sick with a cold today so she has watched more than the average amount of nursery rhyme videos. Thank goodness for those when I need to get a work task done while coughing and generally feeling blah.)