Author: jpeschel1

You are thirteen months old now and you were only one month old that first Christmas.  So this was officially your second Christmas.  And, bless your heart, you put up with the insanity of it all both times…while periodically taking naps.  We could all learn a thing or two from watching you.

So, year one…

It was all about the lights.  There is something mesmerizing about those little twinkling things.

And you let us dress you in silly (cute though) Christmas duds.  Truly, as long as you could eat and sleep, you didn’t care.  So, the adults relaxed along with you.  We each took turns admiring the lights with you and you set the tempo of the day for us.  We took heed and just went with the flow.

You were, very clearly, the best present for all of us grownups.

And now it’s been a year and you may still be teaching the grownups the importance of Christmas.

This year, you got to stay in your jammies because they won’t fit in another month or so and the theme was right.  Still some would say that you kind of blended in with the wrapping paper.  Whatever, you didn’t care.

 And the hat?  Well, that was a silly grownup thing but you think all hats are a little unnecessary.  This one was no exception.  It was discarded in seconds.

So the presents were piled high, under and around the tree.  Now this was cool. You thought they were put there as an obstacle course for you and you were ready for the challenge.

But, drat! Mom, stopped you just as you prepared to master that final assent.

And look at you.  You do blend in with the wrapping paper. 🙂

So we give you boxes that you can “unwrap” and you’re confused.  “See, you can rip the paper.  Go ahead, rip it off.”

Well, there you were pointing to the pretty pictures on the paper and there we were ripping it and I imagine that you were thinking about all other paper that you tried to rip this past year only to be told “No, don’t rip”.

Now, there we were saying, “go ahead, rip.”

Adults are so confusing.  I know.

Then the pretty paper was gone.  The box was gone.  And all you were left with was the “educational” toy.  You put one or two in your mouth to see if they at least tasted good                 and they didn’t, so you crawled away.

 After, what must have seemed like hours, this thing we call gift giving had finally come to an end.  The last of the pretty paper had been ripped clean away.  The cool big boxes had been crushed and hauled away and your new toys were…somewhere.

You didn’t really care. You were exhausted.  Mommy layed down on the floor.  She must have been exhausted too.

You decided that she needed a love.

and then, whoops, in comes daddy, ready to play, and you think, “Here comes Santa…who?”

Thank you, once again, little man, for teaching us the real meaning of Christmas.

What do you do with a baby all day long?  Sure, you would sleep a good deal but you were also awake for many hours during my “shift”.  So…what to do with a baby who can’t walk.

Well, that’s what strollers are made for, right?  And, I’ve known since my kids were young that fresh air is good for all of us.  And exercise is good for grandmas.

So, we hit the road (er, sidewalk) often.

Early in the spring, we would walk to mom’s work.  She would know we were there with a photo of you taken from right outside her office and sent to her via text message.  Your little face made her smile every time.

And we would go to the swing park as soon as you could sit up by yourself.

But the first summer, one of our favorite places to go every Tuesday was the food carts close to mom’s work.  She and some of her friends would join us too.  One day was a really hot day and our favorite food cart wasn’t there (Roll MKE) so we had to settle for other things.  A fruit smoothie seemed perfect for the day and oh my, you loved it!

It was a magical messy event!  We all loved it! 

Over the summer, we walked and walked.  As the fall season came upon us, I wanted to be outside as much as possible.  Walks to the lake were a big, big hit because at the end of the walk was a whole store of kites.  So, the blanket went down and we just sat there and enjoyed the warmth of the days and the beauty of the kites.

Love, Love, Love             The next post will capture all of the great outdoors that we found this first year.  You definitely had lots of experiences.  We need to get all caught up on year one before I start blogging about our current day to day activities.

Even before I started taking care of you, I was given the house rules.  Number one was “No tv.”  Lots has been written about this subject with the major belief that a child does not learn from a television and actually ends up with language and motor delays if too much time is spent simply sitting and watching a screen.

So, when you were teeny tiny, we filled the quiet space with music.  You and I listened to Pandora’s Kid Radio every day. Do you know that they play the same songs over and over and over again?  My favorite was “You Are My Sunshine.”  Your favorite was “Rockin’ Robin”.  I think you liked that one because Grandma would dance all around acting silly with that song.  It wasn’t long though and you were bouncing a little too.

Who Needs TV When You Have Music?  Since you started crawling, the music has moved to little push button toys.  You and I would go for walks and find ourselves at Walgreens, often.  What can I say?  I’m a sucker for teachable toys.  That means that you have more than one of those little push button musical toys.  Now, from those, I think your favorite song is “If You’re Happy And You Know It, Clap Your Hands”.  You used to clap your hands and stomp your feet along with the song.  Now, you just bounce up and down to the song while you play with other toys. The best of these toys was one that’s like a baby CD player.  It has 4 different discs so I don’t have to listen to the same songs over and over again.  That’s a bonus.

Then There Are All Those Books And Building Language!  The other thing we do together, several times during the days, is read books.  Some days the number tops 25.  Well, they’re short books you know.  I love this time together, though, because you sit on my lap.  You sit there engrossed with the pictures, pointing to the things you want me to name.  You even started making some of the animal sounds. Animal Alarm is one example of your cute attempts.  Early on, I could read “Are You My Mother?” everyday and you would sit and smile at specific pages every time.  Then you fell in love with a Thomas the Tank Engine I Can Read books because it had push button sounds along the side.  Now, at a year, your favorite day after day book is an Elmo’s Favorite Places book that has little doors that you can open.  Each page is based on a different theme: farm, sea, bedroom, and the alphabet.  It’s fun to see if you can find specific things on each page, time after time.  It’s easy to see that your receptive language is growing and growing but so far the only “word” you say is dada.  You do, however, also know the signs for “more”, “all done”, and “drink” and you shake your head “yes” and “no” with meaning.

And Motor Skills!  Such simple things entertain you.  Crawling lead you to the steps leading to the upstairs bedrooms.  Ok, mom and dad could have put up a gate to keep you safe or we could all work at teaching you how to do steps.  I’m not so busy.  Let’s do it!  Up and down the steps with me right behind.  In the beginning I felt like I could see your brain working as you tried to figure out whether to slide down from step to step on your butt or to turn around and slide down on your belly.  Now, you make a game out of doing a little of both.  You come down those steps faster than me and even though you might be able to do it all by yourself, I stay very close.

When you’re not by the steps, you are playing with the same toys day after day.  I keep them new and interesting by pre-sorting them into baskets:  all musical toys in one, balls in another, containers with lids in another, and things that can be used to build (or knock down) towers in the last one.  You love dumping everything out, tossing it around, and examining each thing like it’s new all over again.  What I have seen so far is that you do different things with the items week after week.  I spend my time picking things up behind you and keeping it continuously interesting to pull things out again.

Add Eating and Napping and We’ve Filled An Indoor Day Without Screen Time

Although you love pushing buttons and have turned the tv on by pushing those little things on the remote, you do not watch television.  We do, however, watch one or two 3 minute videos on Youtube called “Barefoot Books“.  They are cute short stories with a small amount of animation and the words scrolling along the bottom of the screen.  At 11 months, I added an app called Parker and Pixel.  This is, again, a book but it allows the child to interact with the story so that the sequence of events changes every time you watch it and it teaching a child how to touch the screen.

One year has passed and the No TV rule stands strong.  Well, except for football games on Sundays with dad.  (insert smiley face)