I started this blog for the same reason many mommies blog, I don´t want to forget anything. But then eventually life was bound to interfere with my online journal. Sure enough, I started a small business with my husband that has managed to eat away at any "free" time I could have hoped to have as a stay at home mom. But that is what time is for, no?, making the most of it and going after your dreams. So I took a break from blogging to dive head first into entrepreneurship. While I admit our first business is not the hit I thought it would be, I am ecstatic because in the last two-almost-three months I have discovered I don´t lack skills and creativity when it comes to crafts! In fact, I am now the proud owner AND user of a Brother HC1850 sewing machine. Not only am I teaching myself how to sew, I am becoming good at it and have discovered how much I love working with my hands.
All of my professional experience has been 80% intellectual and 20% everything else. Nothing but computer screens, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, SAP databases, and the never-ending quest for maximizing ROI by turning strategies into action and getting results that exceed expectations. These past few months the percentages have shifted and now my work is 20% intellectual and 80% everything else. My days are now filled with deciding which products to develop, picking out fabric, finding or making sewing patterns, cutting, sewing, adding cute finishing details and learning to use Photoshop to turn said finished products into noteworthy ads.
I have managed to harness all of the brainpower that misses working on endless documents and formulas and am now using it to enhance the skills and abilities I thought I lacked in the creative department. I am on my way to becoming the domestic goddess I secretly yearn to be. There really is nothing I love more than learning new things and discovering aspects of myself I didn´t know existed. Life lesson: Never sell yourself short, you will never know what you are capable of until you try, so go ahead and take a stab at it. The worst thing that can happen is that you find out you can´t do it and even then you´ll walk away with the experience, and that´s the best part because it´s our experiences that shape who we are.
So anyway, enough blabbering on about me and on to the reason I came back to this blog... my darling Hannah. I realized yesterday I had already forgotten some of the cute things she did while transitioning from a crawling baby into a walking toddler. AGASP! THE MEMORIES! (See... not-so-distant future!) I guess all of the brainpower it takes to discover new skills takes away from long term memory hahaha ;) Needless to say that it became my priority to take up my online journal again so here I am. Okay, so before any more precious seconds go by and another memory or two is lost... I must convert the intangible into digital. The last entry I wrote about Hannah, I immortalized her love of +BabyTV Español - Latin America time and her tendency to migrate toward me on our family bed, thus leaving me all sandwiched in the middle with no room to breathe, let alone move. Yeah, these thing have not changed, the only difference is that we have added Nick Jr. to the mix so there is less Drako the *odd* nosed dragon, Charlie, Oliver or Popiz and more Dora The Explorer, Bubble Guppies and Team Umizoomi and their "super math powers". Can I just vent a little about how the Spanish version of Dora The Explorer is full of horrible English accents! Dreadful! It´s bad enough to make me want to switch back to BabyTV. Note to +Nickelodeon, the Latin America version of this show is definitely not gonna help a child speak English well. Find better dubbing!
Speaking of which... hahaha, get it?! (I know, I know, awful pun, I too should be ashamed) Hannah is 19 months old, going on 20 and is still not talking, but that doesn´t mean she isn´t communicating. She is a master of non-verbal communication and finding ways of letting her needs be known and heard loud and clear. Her dictionary is slowly but surely accumulating and I have noticed even more so these past two months and, while she doesn´t talk, she does use several words/expressions correctly. Her choice vocal expressions are often followed or preceded by boisterous sounds and/or arm gestures depending on the urgency of the need she is trying to convey and sometimes, when the need is great, voiced during a temper tantrum. Its a mixed bag of VERY LOUD/VERY OBVIOUS verbal and non-verbal communication. Yes Hannah, we get it, your wish is our command ;)
Hannah´s dictionary: in order of preference and usage... "AGUA" (Spanish for water but not limited to water), "NO, NO, NO" (again, shame on me, all of the articles I read about not using the word no with your toddler and it´s clear I say it to her enough for it to be her no. 2 preferred word), "AITA" (shortened version of "Ahà está" or "there it is" in English, used whenever she is looking for something she wants; she learned this one from our games of peek-a-boo in Spanish), "Daddy" (not limited to her father), "ChiChi" (Spanish cutesy version of boobies), "NUM NUM" (food), "NANO" (baby version of nachos, yes, I love them and now so does she) "TATO" (short for zapato, or shoe in Spanish), "YeYi" (it started off as her way of saying Jenni, my BF´s name, but is now the term she uses for any person or animal whose attention she wants), "Chish" (Spanish cutesy way of saying something is "gross" and, unfortunately, we have to say it to her constantly as a way of keeping icky things from ending up in her mouth), "MaMa" (only used after a HUGE temper tantrum when she needs some TLC and in these scenarios quite often used paired with "ChiChi"), "Weee" (she learned this one from going down her favorite slide in the playground at Paseo Cayala, but is now used whenever she slides down or off anything), "Diaper" (used when she is being changed).
Aside from learning to communicate, she is also getting quite dexterous and mobile. She can now walk REALLY FAST. So much so that LAAWWD help you if she decides to make a "run" for it and you are not alert or paying attention. Yes, I have had many moments of panic and breathlessness as of late running after her. One of the more memorable, could have been so horrible if our Angels weren´t on duty and front and center, moments of panic occurred as I watched my baby walk straight into a glass wall while she walked ahead of my BF as I was opening the stroller by the car. Horrible mini heart attack later, she was 100% fine, if scared and in pain from the bump. It´s easy to forget that picking up on visual clues is an acquired skill... *worst moment ever*. As if these small bursts of intense speed weren´t frightening enough for this newbie mama, Hannah is now tall enough to slide off of the bed by herself. Yes, I can thank +Gymboree Play&Music for that one! Her 2 months of gym fun taught her how to "climb" up and down stairs and tall obstacles, but I do have to say that at least she learned how to do it safely: legs and butt first.
Finally, her newest quirks:
1. She loves digging in my purse still, but now she has added the "extra fun for mommy" task of taking everything out of said purse and finding new hiding places for all of mommy´s things. The newest conversation lines between my husband and I: "Have you seen my other shoe/keys/phone/etc.?" "Look in Hannah´s toys"... sure enough, in between all of her plastic toys and balls will be your missing shoe/keys/phone/etc. Or how about the time mama caught Hannah with her keys in one hand dangling them over the toilet and mama had to silently make her way into the bathroom and coax the keys out of her hands very much like a scene from a movie where the hero has to quietly approach the nervous perpetrator so as not to startle him into accidentally pulling the trigger... sheessh, let me tell you that one was a nail-biter.
2. She has graduated from nervously laughing with glee and chasing after Bailey (my BF´s dog) to playing with his toys, eating his food, and licking his plate. EWWWWW! "Chish!"
3. She LOVES potatoes in any way shape and or form.
4. After she eats, she likes to lick her high chair tray.
5. It´s not enough that she can now drink from her own sippy cup and eat her own food, NO, she wants to drink from your cup and eat from your food as well (and by you I mean everyone).
6. Her favorite at-home activities are climbing up and down stairs while "counting" (I count and she "counts" along which means sing-songing baby slang versions of numbers), chasing after balls (my BF got her what is now her favorite toy ever, the +Fisher-Price® ball throwing Dino), and playing with water in the backyard on her waterpark table).
7. She loves to crawl on top of tables (which reminds me that my father loved to tell me the story of how as a toddler I loved climbing onto tables and he had to constantly tell me that tables were for eating and not sitting... Yessss, I guess the apple doesn´t fall far from the tree) and she also gets a kick out of stuffing her mouth full of food (while her poor anxious mother tries to gently urge her to spit out all of the food she has in her mouth while silently praying her little darling doesn´t choke).
Add to all of this amazing temper tantrums, what with the whole *super fun* toddler testing the limits phase, and my household is full of love, laughter and tears.
P.S. She had her very first haircut on Friday, December 6, 2013. Yes, I kept a bit of her hair :)
P.P.S. We are still successfully breastfeeding at 19 months... YEY US! (Even if my mom thinks it is slightly disturbing for me to still be breastfeeding) The only downside is our current growth spurt which has me breastfeeding like I did in the early days *ALL NIGHT LONG*, but sore nipples aside, I love that I have been able to provide her with the extra added bonus of mommy´s milk during the first going on two years of her life. To quote my loving sister... "I Rock!"
P.P.P.S. My loving sister found out on Sunday that she is PREGNANT! SO excited for Hannah to have another cousin :)
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