Dear Baby a,

You are starting to make your presence much more known these days. You are kicking or punching or rolling or whatever with much greater frequency and strength. In about a week we will find out if you are a boy or girl. I can't wait to know more about you; to see your little heart and nose and fingers.

When I was pregnant with Teddy, I was certain he was a girl for the whole first half of my pregnancy. That is, until the day we found out he was 100% boy. And it took me a day or two to come to terms with my misconstrued vision of who he would be. And it took me most of his first year to come to terms with my misconstrued visions of what an infant, a toddler, would be.

One thing that I can tell you today is that I honestly have no idea what to expect with you. I have little if any preconceived notions of whether you are a boy or girl, what kind of infant or toddler you will be, what it will be like to be your mother.

I only know of one thing - my absolute gratitude that you are ours. Whoever you are, whoever you end up being, you were first the biggest gift to our family.

Love,
Mom

Thankful Thursday

For cool rain

For Skittles

For slow jogs

For skirts

For busy parks

Some days I get adventurous

And on those days I roll up my sleeves, whip up a batch of homemade finger paint, strip down the toddler, and let things go where they may.

I learn just as many lessons as him, like do NOT give a toddler a whole cup full of paint at one time nor a spoon to glob it out in big heaps.

This will not result in the cool, abstract toddler art worthy of the fridge-hang. But, it will ensure a happy, out of the norm afternoon for all involved.

And I suppose that is what makes life beautiful anyway.

Happy Friday

A video of finger-spoon-painting-toddler-politeness-cuteness.


Painting from M Ai on Vimeo.

Wisdom

"In the end these things matter most: 

How well did you love? 

How fully did you live? 

How deeply did you learn to let go?”

- Siddhartha Gautama

Thankful Thursday

For gardens

For a toddler's "help"

For down times

For fresh fruit

For sandals

For those of us whose living rooms will never be seen on Pinterest

It must be the week of finding things through blogs and the web that really strike me. I've done it again. This one is for all my mom friends who, like me, tend to hold ourselves to high standards.

There’s something deeper going on in family life than can ever be expressed on a social network. Whatever it is we feel we are lacking, can we collectively decide–as deliberate mothers–that we are not going to sit around feeling discouraged about all the things we’re not? Can we remind each other that it is our uniqueness and love that our children long for?

Thankful Thursday

For last minute invitations

For excuses to make super unhealthy delicious deserts

For cold water

For coupons

For pasta

21 Months & Things

1. You are a counting machine...when you feel like it.
2. You are a letter-repeating/identifying machine....when you feel like it.
3. You have officially graduated to a booster seat at the dinner table.
4. When I am driving without you, albeit rare, I still notice every "scooper truck," garbage truck, and mail man truck. And it makes me miss you.

Choose laughter

Sometimes something just strikes me. This quote did just that. How true, profound, and simple. "all in all, I've resigned myself to the fact that motherhood is manic. And messy. But also really, really fun. And funny! Never in my life have I laughed as hard as I do now. So maybe that's my advice to new moms: when in doubt, choose laughter." - Jen Green, Brand Editor of Anthropolgie, on what advice she would give new moms.