DAY 365 (plus 2)

AHHHH! My baby is now a year old!!! (plus two days)

I've been quite the busy body stressing out about her birthday party because there's nothing for me to get ready for.  WHAT?! I know.  I'm stressing out because I have nothing to stress about.  I'm such a weirdo.  But my stressful most favorite hobby is event planning and this is  MAJOR event and I want to do everything and bend over backwards for my baby's first birthday.  I suppose the reason I'm so stressed and upset, really, is because I feel like I have to do something for her birthday for me to feel that I am expressing her specialness to me.  I've really been contemplating on why this has been bothering me so much.  I've narrowed down the root of the emotion.  I think it's my love language.  I've never really known what my love language is.  I always feel like every single one of them makes me really really happy and I do every single one of the love language, I suppose depending on the person on the receiving it.  But for me, at this moment, for my precious Luna, my love language must be acts of service.  I feel like because I'm not throwing this huge birthday bash myself and essentially just busting out my wallet, I'm not doing anything special.  I'm not laboring to throw her a birthday party. (ha! LABORING!) Also, it goes to show that spending money and gift giving/receiving isn't one of my love languages.

Now that I've sort of figured it out, I'm trying to come to terms with it.  Just because I'm not losing sleep over assembling some sort of figure and running around like a crazy madwoman decorating a place doesn't mean that I love her less.  In fact, she won't remember a darn thing, will only have pictures to see, and then her siblings (unformed at the moment, I think) will be jealous that Luna got the most attention to detail for her first birthday.  Another thing is that despite the fact that everything is prepared by the venue, I'm still assembling something (her giant block letters) and will still be running around like a crazy madwoman anyway.  So I'm sitting here trying to convince myself that she's no less special, or that she'll think that I love her less, or that she'll be upset that I didn't prepare for her birthday just because Luna didn't get a pink and purple explosion birthday with a big bounce house she can't jump in, with streamers, a matching balloon arch, a magician, paper cups with her name decorated on it, and people in furry costumes dancing about.  She'll just get all that for the first birthday we celebrate when we get back home....given that her (once again, unformed) siblings aren't old enough to remember.

Stubborn Luna

Luna is walking furiously lately.  She will walk a perimeter to get to where she wants to go instead of crawling a shorter distance.  She even walks on the bed which is amazing because that takes more balance than a hard surface.  She is pretty determined.  You know what else she is determined to do?  Rather, it's more like determined NOT to do.  She is determined not to eat and therefore frustrate me like no other.  She doesn't want to be fed, so I gave her the spoon to feed herself.  However, she doesn't want to do that either.  She throws the spoon on the floor. Fine, then eat with your God-given chopsticks, will ya?  Nope, she'll squish the food between her itty bitty fingers instead and paint the tray with the food.  Does it get to her mouth?  No.  She doesn't even try sometimes.  Sigh.

But she smiles.  She will flash that beautiful smile of hers my way and my heart melts.

Luna has been reading more lately.  I've decided that books are replaceable and gave her the paper books in addition to her board books.  She's only ripped out one page thus far and that was only because the book itself was heavy. She seems to favor this 101 Dalmations book, which happens to be the only hardcover book in her collection, and thus the only book that stays open.  Isn't this just adorable?  She reads every morning in bed as she waits for her half-asleep mother to get herself together for the day.  When she's done reading, she crawls to the corner of the bed that's not guarded by the rail or bookshelf or pack n play and faces the door.  She's ready to head out for the day.

We also bought some felt to make some puppets.  Mr. Rabbit is the first of our creation.  It turned out better than expected, so yay!

Where does the time go?

Seriously, I don't understand where the time goes.  And the problem is that I don't even remember doing anything to make the time pass even faster.  Today, someone asked me what I normally do on Saturdays.  I thought about it for a minute and realized I don't even remember what I did last Saturday!  Everyday seems to be filled with the same old stuff and routines and you would think that I would be super unhappy with the fact that life is passing by without making any lasting memories or achievements.  But the fact of the matter is that everyday is filled with my Luna.  Last Saturday, I probably did what I did the day before and the day before that, and the day before THAT--which is that I woke up at 7 am, played in bed with Luna, fed Luna and watched her give herself an oatmeal facial and hair treatment, cleaned her up and the 2 foot radius surrounding her chair, put her to bed, keep myself from overloading others' facebook newsfeed with Luna, read with Luna, eat with Luna, change Luna's diaper(several times throughout the day), roll around the living room with Luna, take pictures of Luna, wash Luna's clothes, talk about Luna to Husband, have dinner with Luna, give Luna a bath, clean up the 2 foot radius surrounding her chair, dress Luna, and put her down for the night.  After that, I probably did some work.  I know it sounds ridiculously boring and monotonous.  I do the same things every single day.  But I am utterly, blissfully happy with my day.  The work that I do after I put her down is probably what keeps my sanity, and I am grateful that I am able to work from home.  So, where does the time go?  Luna takes it and runs off with it.  That's where the time goes.

Today, Luna is eleven months old.  Next month, she will be one.  That means, we will have had a year of this wonderful little person as part of our lives.  A year of breastfeeding (praise the Lord!), a year of diaper washing, a year of cooing and aww-ing over the smallest little thing that Luna does.  A year of blessings, with so so many more to come as Luna grows up.  Each day is a new day, and though it is filled with the same routines we have everyday, it is filled with a new sense of wonder and amazement over this little person, and more love that I can have ever imagined of being capable of.

Happy Eleven months my beautiful Luna