one year, one day

It's been a year. That went really fast.

happy birthday baby

My Babs is one year old now. She had a really fun birthday, thanks to a visit from Grandma and Aunt M. Because they were here we got to go to the Aquarium, which really pleased both children. Who knew my Babs loved animals so much? And we also had cake, and dinner, and presents. Plus extra love from family? what could be better than that?
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Kiddo also loved the aquarium. Her favorite part, hands down, was "her walrus," which as you can see, is just a plaster statue. We actually went back to see it twice.
And this is a recent family photo, with the adopted walrus. It qualifies as "good" because we're all looking at the camera. And the birthday girl looks beautiful.

she speaks

She (Babs) says "uh-oh." She even knows when to use it, but will repeat it happily in most instances. It's surprising to hear such a little person use words, but I like it. She also, in very specific instances, says "da-da." She will say it when he comes home, if she can crawl to him. If either of those conditions is not met, she won't say a word. (She will though, flap her arms wildly until he comes to say hi to her.)

the view from here

This is hands down one of the most common views in my life. A two and a half foot tall little person demanding my attention by hanging on to my pants. Note the well flared lips, a sign of whining. Oh, the whining...

bedtime routine

When going to bed, Kiddo has to go to the bathroom (which may take up to a half hour, depending on her day, and ours), drink a glass of milk, change into jammies (no more pull-ups, yay!), read scriptures, sing a song, say a prayer, and then have a few books read to her. Then one of us will lie with her for the five minutes or so it takes for her to fall asleep.

Unless she's had a nap. Then one of us reads her a lot of books, then leaves her to entertain herself with books, requests to use the potty, and requests for food (guess that's not so much entertaining just herself, is it?) until about 11 pm. We try to avoid naps. (But I need naps! So we still have quiet time almost every day.)

Babs has a much smaller routine. When we remember, we say family prayer together. My husband usually reads her two or three board books. She nurses (time varying from 5 seconds to 5 minutes). I stand next to her crib and sing her one song. She dives into the crib. She falls asleep. She may, start looking longingly into the crib while the song is going on. Do not be fooled. It is important to sing the entire song. Putting her in bed without completing the song will cause an unhappy baby, and thus the song and put into bed step will need to be repeated.

5 minutes vs. 45 minutes. No wonder we prefer the process for Babs.

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The other amusing thing about Babs is that she goes to bed at 6 pm. She's a pretty short napper, so by 6 pm she has had it. She is often wailing while we put on her jammies. She then sleeps until about 7:30 (sometimes she will have a 5 am snack). We thought this would be a short phase, but it's been going on for a few months now, and there appears to be no end in the near future. It means that as a family, we don't go anywhere in the evening. But that's okay.

climber alert

Our first child was not a climber. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be a family thing, as I had hoped, but individual. The second seems keen on honing this skill as soon as possible.


(Yeah, I know, she's going to have to go mostly naked all summer just so I can love that adorable chubby body. How can I even think of covering it, even with the cutest clothes?)

color blind

One thing I really desire for my children is sufficient exposure to diverse populations, such that they are color blind. But, I never really thought that would be possible until we arrived where we are for my husband's work. We are in the minority in our town, and at our church.

[Once we were eating at "the burger store." A white person walked in and I thought, now they look out of place, and then quickly remembered I was white too, and thus also stood out.]

Last night though, I knew we had succeeded. In a book we were reading, Kiddo found someone with her name. There were four children in the illustration: two boys, a girl with long braids who was black and a short haired blond girl. Kiddo looked at the children, knowing one shared her name, and associated herself with the girl with long hair.

Now if I can just help her keep this as we move to our next place.