Reaching the first year milestone is a BIG one, and I think every parent would agree. I describe it like a deep breath. We made it, we survived (mostly) unscathed, and we’re left with the confidence that “ok, we can do this.” The joke that the first birthday party is for the parents isn’t too far from reality. We deserve the celebration as much as anyone, am I right?
Since we’re heading out of town for Layla’s actual birthday and the weekend immediately following, we decided to do an early celebration in San Diego and invite some close friends. Because the party fell almost two weeks before Layla’s actual birthday, I’ve had more time to wrap my head around the fact that she’s ACTUALLY turning one. I can’t tell you how hard it is for me to believe!
On the morning of June 30th, at 4:08am, we welcomed our second daughter – Layla Josephine. Although she made us wait an extra 8 days past her due date, once she was on her way, she moved pretty quickly, arriving 9 1/2 hours after my water broke. My mom and sister were in the delivery room (my Dad stayed home with big sister Ellie) and Chris got to catch her, pulling her out by holding under her armpits and placing her on my chest. He didn’t have time to put gloves on – neither did the midwife – because once I started pushing, she came out much quicker than expected. You’ll hear me complain every day about pregnancy pains and discomforts but I’ve been blessed with two relatively smooth deliveries. It doesn’t escape me how fortunate I am.
ORIGNAL POST WAS POSTED IN MAY 2015. I HAVE SINCE UPDATED IT WITH A YEAR UPDATE
(FIND IT BELOW ORIGINAL POST).
We started potty training Ellie a week and a half ago, coincidentally on her 21-month birthday. I thought I’d share about our little mini-journey: the steps we followed and guidelines we’re still following. Looking back I think it’s almost more about when the parents are ready than the child. There are going to be messes, frustrations and your patience will be tried. But your kid is bright – and they’ll get it!
This day came sooner than I planned. But if I’m being fair, I guess I’m rarely ready for Ellie to grow up. She already seems so ahead of the game, communicating beyond her years, understanding more than a 2-year-old should, being so in tune with herself and her surroundings. It’s freaky sometimes – but its obvious she’s ready for this next step, even if I’m not: PRESCHOOL.
FACT: Your newborn baby will grow and change more in their first year of life than any other time.
It’s not as if we needed a fact to give us a reason for documenting our amazing and fast-developing babies. But it’s true – and it’s why the monthly baby photos are so popular and fun. It’s incredible to be able to see how much a baby physically changes in their first year by looking at side-by-side progression photos.
I knew I wanted to document Ellie’s growth and progression in monthly baby photos but I wanted to do something other than the standard number on a onesie. Don’t get me wrong – I think those are super adorable but I wanted to see if we could come up with something a little out of the box. I tend to like to complicate simple things, even when I have a brand new baby apparently…
Now that I’ve started planning for Ellie’s second birthday party, I figured it was time to share details from her first birthday party. In other words, procrastinating for 11 months is long enough.
We turned our backyard into a Lemonade Stand and served “elLe-monade” (get it? wink wink) – regular and spiked of course, because aren’t first birthday parties about the adults too!?
Ellie is 19 months today (side note: I’m going to be sad to stop counting months soon!) and for the last week or so has been peeing on the potty just about every time we sit her down on it. We do it strategically – like after bath when she always seems to need to pee – or after her milk, right before bedtime. This picture was taken a week or so ago – when she was good about staying seated for awhile. Now she’s in the habit of jumping up mid-stream to celebrate: “Yay Ellie!!!” she says while clapping her hands enthusiastically. She’s usually not done, but is excited to dump the peepee into the big potty (“Ellie do it!” but if she did herself there would be pee everywhere) and then start over. Last night she did this 3 times, and peed each time. The fact that she can cut her peeing into thirds is pretty impressive, haha. She doesn’t go on the potty at daycare but they’ve recommended we start potty training her in the next couple months.
I’m not totally sure why this feels like such a mile marker for me. I’ve been referring to this day for a couple weeks as “Ellie’s Birthday” and Chris keeps rolling his eyes and correcting me: “It’s her HALF Birthday.” Yea, yea, but she’s EIGHTEEN months old! She’s actually an age you can describe without using months. She’s one and a half years old. Tomorrow she will be closer to two years old than one.