Journal

Since M turned 12 months last December, I have been a bit more disciplined in keeping a journal. She is learning new things every day and at such fast a pace that I find it difficult to record everything.
Something she started doing last month was pointing at her right hand fingers with the left forefinger when hearing "one, two, three, four, five" (both in English and Catalan).
She spends much time putting things through holes. For that purpose I have given her different items: a box with a slot and some bottle caps; a container with a small opening and a handful of hazelnuts, a game I made with a cardboard box (putting bottle caps through the hole in the image below).

Today she has spent around 20 minutes putting hazelnuts through the opening on a small container and asking me to take them out every time she had them all inside (sorry for the mess in the background...)

She now masters drinking water from a small glass.  She started asking for water using the word "ababa" last week and we are so happy to pour more every time she is thirsty.  In a couple months I intend to set a water station and she will be able to pour herself a glass.

She is also interested in getting dressed. I left a bag full of old clothes to give away in the corridor and she has spent some time trying to put some on.

 

Other activities she is very much into are putting the caps on bottles and putting eggs in egg boxes.

(I apologize for the poor quality of the picture)

Memories

My dearest daughter,

Exactly a year ago this evening labor started, the most fruitful labor I had experienced in my life.
Your father and I had gone to my childhood's home to wait for the moment and in the evening of December, 21st I started to feel heavier. Something I couldn't really express felt like you were about to arrive. It was indeed time. You had been expected since Dec., 8th.
My nieces C and A were around and they joined me in my gymnastics and yoga. After dinner I felt like having a cup of hot chocolate and my mother made us one. I remember 'cause never a cup of chocolate has been most enjoyed and regretted afterwards. At midnight I brought up supper, chocolate and tangerines all in a tangle of pain, nerves, expectation. Labor pains got stronger as I went deeper in the night. All by myself I had to focus on hearing the noises of the house to get distracted. However, at dawn the pain grew as a hungry lion and roared and roared. Daylight welcome a pain I had never known before. Painful, yeah but full of different shades. Never a pain has caused such curiosity. I was curious to see the end of it, full of expectations. By the time children were going to school, passing under the window, my husband and I started out to hospital. My sister, a teacher, was also going to school and I recall how pain was pinning me down nearly making me cry when she greeted a pupil's mother with a cheerful "this is my sister, yeah, they are already going to hospital".
It was Dec., 22nd., an ever joyful day, the last day of school before Christmas, a day of Christmas carols concerts, the National lottery draw in Spain. We headed for hospital and the rest is history...
How beautiful were those last days feeling you so near.

Our pre-tot school in pictures

I have been so busy lately that I haven't blogged at all. Facts are I have had to read a lot for my book clubs this month and whenever I have a moment I do some research in order to prepare spaces for M. That's whay I have thought I may show you some of these spaces in pictures.

She has new skills everyday and I am so happy to see her growing cheerful and balanced. 

 

Before the cold season set in, we spent some time in the garden, experimenting with sand, flour, rocks...   

 I left a basket with wooden kitchen utensils in M's playing room for her to explore. She really played with them, taking them out and putting them back in the basket.

Here you can see M climbing to get inside one of the new bookcases we got from a charity shop while my husband was assembling them. These bookcases are intended to contain material for M on their lower shelves.

There she is making music, one of her favorite activities. For 
this purpose, we have set a wonderful tray with instruments in her nook in the living-room.

 

Another activity that we often enjoy is hands washing -and playing with water-...

 

And, this is the kitchen corner. There, M has a magnet bear on the bottom part of the refrigerator and she likes to take the magnets out and see how they stick back again. She is of course too young to change the several outfits this bear has, but I change them some mornings while we fix breakfast and I then tell M how is the weather that particular day and what clothes the bear might need. 

 

Every time the laundry basket used to be around M came to it and took the clothes one by one. That's why I gave her some of her own clothes to play with, and there she is trying to put on a coat!

 

 

For some weeks now we have had this basket full of blue items in the living-room corner. We have explored them several times together. I realize it might be time to change it now... What color shall we have next? Maybe red? Or may I set a Christmas basket now??

I hope you liked our activities!

Of buggies and carriers

Well, and today that M is turning 11 months we have assembled the stroller and used it causing a wave of opposing feelings to beat on me.
M always used to complain a lot every time we tried to use the stroller and I felt stupid pushing it while wearing her so very soon I took on to wearing her all the time and forgot about the buggy.
M is getting a bit heavier and after feeling a bit weak last week today I decided to give the stroller a go.  It felt so very odd to have her look at the landscape and me push her without being able to see or touch her face. I must say I absolutely love to carry her.
Surprisingly she seemed to enjoy the stroll -around the garden. Well, for the first ten minutes...
I have realized that this doesn't really work for us, it is not the way we relate to each other, and it makes us both feel strange. She needs me as much as I need her and it is absurd to push a baby who screams because she needs the comfort of her mother's body while feeling empty because I am used to wearing her close to my heart.
As long as she needs it and my strength is enough, we will go on using the baby carrier.

The way we parent; or reflections on daily routines

As we were bathing M last night, my husband made me notice the way he has to rinse our daughter's hair. Of course, I already knew, I had seen him doing it many times. He dips his own hands in the water and strokes M's hair a hundred times. I only laughed at him and at how ineffective the system looks. I also happen to mention that M's hair always has a sticky lock due to this so very gentle rinsing method.

How do I do it, anyway? I always start gently pouring water on her head with the best of intentions. "This time it won't pour on her face" I tell myself, but in the end it does and she starts crying and wants to leave the bath immediately. The consequence being that some shampoo remains also in her hair.
Somewhat offended my husband has looked at me and said: "We are always talking about how to parent respectfully, how to do things the most respectful way and there you laugh at my method".
How right he is! If neither way can completely rinse M's hair, we better have the one that doesn't make her cry.

Some cozy nooks -M's room-

These last weeks we have been busy rearrenging our house so M can crawl everywhere and stand up on furniture with no danger.  Now that she crawls up and down at her will, she can decide where to spend time so we have set some activities for her in nearly each room of our house. There is, of course, her room, where she doesn't sleep yet but where there is a mattress so she can rest whenever she feels like it. I have to admit she has never used it but to climb, but there it is. The decoration in the room is scarce:  two pegs with marine elements ( a mermaid, and a flounder) on one wall; a picture made of knitted letters with M's name on another; a low shelf with a cloth dice and a cuddly elephant. There are also two baskets in the room, one with some books and the other with a weekly activity, as I mentioned in my last post. This week we have several pieces of fabric; a woolen scarf, a silk handkerchief, some velvet mittens, a piece of flannel, and a remnant of corduroy. She has scarcely paid attention to this, so interested she is in looking at the books, but I am already thinking ahead. I will prepare a matching activity with these remnants.

Hats on

In M's room there are two baskets, one containing several board and cloth books --including one I made myself; the other a weekly activity. This past week we had several hats in it: two straw pamelas with ribbons, a knitted cap, a bonnet, and a peaked cap. 

Once a day M checks the basket and although she is not very attracted to the hats, she enjoys seeing me taking one by one and trying them on. I offer one hat to her but she doesn't want to wear anything on her head.

This activity was intended both to make the routine of getting dressed a funny thing and as an introduction to body vocabulary. She already identifies the nose. I have realized one could do many other activities with the hats. They are made of different materials, have various sizes, and so on. However, since M is still very young and she is not very keen on putting on hats not even to have a look at the mirror, I will keep the activity for later on. Tomorrow I will change the contents of the basket... and will let you know what our new treasure hamper contains. I have several ideas...