A Year-ish In

The baby girl turned one on Jan 19th. I started this entry a few days before then but haven’t gotten a chance to finish it till now. So my apologies dear bloggy readers.

In honor of Baby Girl’s first trip around the sun, here are some of my highlights from this past year.

January, I lost tons of sleep even before the baby was born. I experienced a little bit of remorse about the end of the pregnancy. I was convinced I was going to miss the little one being inside and the middle of the night hiccup-fest. Glad to say, Aaron was once again right on this one, the feeling went away the moment I heard the wailing from the other side of the curtain.

I was extremely fortunate and thankful that post-partum depression lasted all of about a few days, and the worst of it was in the hospital when I ordered a dinner for Aaron and he said he really wasn’t all that hungry. It brought me to tears. To this day I still think that was the trippiest thing I have ever encountered. On the one hand, I totally understood and wasn’t the slightest bit sad about it, but there I was bawling because he didn’t want to eat hospital food.

February brought a whole host of new experiences. First real bath in a tub, first time In addition to being new parents we were now furniture shopping with a little one. I was also getting to the point of delirium. Case in point, I once tried answering my remote control-I wasn’t coming out of sleep. The nifty thing was that we had the first Mommy and baby outing to meet up with some friends for brunch. Firly successful but I learned that there is no such thing as bringing too much milk. I had to make an emergency stop at my brother’s before heading home.

March was fun and a little sad. In the beginning of the month we celebrated Aaron’s birthday as a family for the first time. But, I also had to go back to work. Boo… Luckily, that’s when Mamá and Papá stepped in and thank goodness for that. Baby Girl became a lot more active. She started being able to roll around and became much more interactive. She no longer smiled because she was gassy. She actually smiled because she was happy. Awwww… We also moved into our new home.

In April we had the whole family over for her 100 day for the first time. I think she was a bit overwhelmed at first but eventually really enjoyed it. We also got to celebrate my birthday as a family.

In May we started hearing more definitive “Dada’s” and “Mama,” but not very often mostly, she drooled and cooed.

In June we took our first family trip out to Massachusetts. The road trip was fine. She slept most of the way there and when she wasn’t sleeping she was busy looking out the window. The way back wasn’t so great. We hit a lot of traffic and she lost her patience. I had to crawl to the back seat mid ride to keep her happy.

On July 19th, her 6 month mark, Baby Girl got her first haircut. Mamá couldn’t stand the little strands of hair that got in her eyes so she trimmed it. I still have the trimmings. That reminds me, I have to get laminating materials. But yes, the other exciting thing was, she started staying seated and she got to try “solid foods” for the first time. We started off nice and slowly with homemade pureed peas. A whole teaspoon! The bad part was that we discovered that eating too much solid food too fast leads to vomiting. Not cool. Especially since I was in the car driving home.

By August we started seeing signs of her fist little tooth. But also the first case of croup. I’ve never heard of this but apparently it’s fairly common. Luckily it got knocked out quickly.

By about September she was really on a roll with the whole crawling thing. She was now no longer happy to sit there and play passively. Nope, now she could scoot around.

In October Baby Girl got to see the first hints of cold weather. The later on in the month she got to see her first snow storm. She loved it! Auntie Andrea babysat her that day so she went out to play with the cousins.

In November we took her on her fist airplane ride to California. She did fantastic. She actually really loved the ride out. Thanks to a very kind agent at the check in counter we got a three seat row so we had the middle seat open for her to play in. She also spent a good amount of time playing with everyone on the plane. The ride back was a lot more subdued. Thanks to our friend’s kids, she got her first cold. Not good. The great news was on the 29th, I noticed her standing all on her own for a few seconds. Apparently my parents and Aaron had seen this a few days earlier. Ah well. Thanksgiving as always was excellent for her. She got to spend several days with the cousins. Never slept better. :D

By the time December rolled around she was crawling and inching along on everything. It’s amazing how far she’s come and how many things she can get into. This made me worry a bit about how she would fare with the decorations. But much to my surprise, while she was genuinely interested in the commotion in the house and all the decorations, she was excellent and listened when we told her not to touch the tree. But just in case, I put all the non-breakable ornaments at the bottom. Christmas day was great. She spent the day with the cousins and even got to do her favorite thing in the world, rip up paper. I can’t even begin to tell you how many magazines I’ve lost to her. I think that Aaron put them out there for her to shred so that I have to get rid of back issues. Sigh…

January. So here we are one year in and Baby Girl now has the beginnings of her next two teeth, top fronts and keeps jamming her fist into her mouth to get to the back of her mouth which leads me to believe her molars are itching. She stands for much longer periods of time and hasn’t figured out that she could probably walk if she lets go of things. What’s crazy is that since her birthday, it seems like she has just learned so much more. It’s kind of scary. She now says a whole lot more and expresses herself fairly effectively. She uses sign language for a few things and words for the things she knows; namely milk, ball, no, Papá (to my Dad), and of course Dada. She still doesn’t call me Mommy. She’ll say Momma, when she’s upset, but when addressing me, it’s Dada. I must be the girl Dada to her. We’ve also noticed that she understands Spanish. My parents and I speak to her in Spanish almost exclusively. Aaron and everyone else speak to her in English. It’s working out nicely. She can point to facial features when asked in either language and will also say, “leche” to my Mom.

In her first Hambok (traditional Korean dress). With Tio Alvin, her birthday buddy.

In her other Hambok

CAKE!

















Again, this year has been a blur and I can’t believe it came and went. I’m amazed every day by the new things she picks up and does. It’s like someone flipped a switch and put her into learning overdrive. Still, THE very best thing in the world is just giving her huggles. Especially since she huggles back. Ahhhhhh…. :D