To start the new year, I wanted to find a new way to document our life with Ada right now. Last year, I took monthly photos with a chalkboard heart. This year, I bid an enthusiastic au revoir to chalk as it was starting to get tricky. Wrangling a moving child and a chalk board was an adventure.
Going forward, I want reflect on my favorite little moments from the past month, starting with December, the last month of the chalkboard photos. These photos are chiefly from my phone (sorry!) but I will work on remembering to get the good camera out more often (#goals).
December was a busy month with Ada’s first birthday and Christmas!
As the weather got colder, we spent a lot of time in my building’s playroom. We love that room! It’s a small space off the laundry room where people have contributed toys their kids have outgrown. Ada loves the small kitchen and this block thing that sings the alphabet. Occasionally I place her on the zebra because it cracks me up.
My mother and I went to the Winter One of a Kind show. Ada’s been to the Spring one, but now she’s been to the original as well. I brought the Lillebaby this time rather than the stroller because that craft show is super-crowded. I used a small, crossbody diaper bag and this proved to be an error when I realized I did not have a change of clothes for Ada. Poor girl got some new leg warmers and was zipped inside my coat to go home.
We braved the first wet, heavy snow of the season to take Ada to see Santa in our neighborhood’s Winterfest. There were stops at many of the local stores with cookies, Rudolph, and crafts. I think Ada will love this as she gets older. For now, we stuck with the Santa visit.
We spend a lot of time at one of our local parks. Ada loves to swing! I seem to have neglected to bring her shoes with me for this particular visit. I’m not great with shoes.
Ada’s newest trick is to stick her bum up in the air so she forms a triangle and look back through her legs. She thinks this is hilarious and will laugh the whole time. On the morning of her birthday party, we caught her on the monitor practicing in her crib.
She’s also started sleeping with a small, stuffed rabbit we call Bun. You can kind of see him at her feet in the photo above.
Ada’s grandma got her some small spoons and forks so we decided to try them out with yogurt. I’m right-handed and Will is left-handed so I put a spoon in each of her hands. She seemed to use both with equal grace.
We spent time at our local library. It’s very close to our home and has a great children’s area with puzzles, coloring, blocks, and bins of board books so I don’t have to worry too much about Ada destroying paper pages. There are also always a lot of kids to watch, and Ada is quite the people-watcher.
Ada can almost sit reliably in the front of shopping carts. She’s still a bit of a monkey, though, and generally needs to be bribed with biscuits.
We went to Christkindl Market with my mother but I apparently didn’t get any photos of us there. We were at the Daley Center so I could pick up a copy of Ada’s birth certificate and decided to make a morning of it. Ada’s favorite part was probably lunch at Corner Bakery (where, apparently, they have scrambled eggs for kids! Good to know, because Ada loves eggs).
Our building had its Holiday Party and the first hour was for kids. There was applesauce in pouches (along with a lot of other great food) and Ada figured out how to slurp straight from the pouch. Previously, we’d squeezed pouches onto spoons, so this was a noteworthy game-changer.
It snowed a lot in December, but we still got to the park whenever it wasn’t freezing. I seem to have neglected shoes again on this trip. Get it together, mama!
We spent Christmas Eve with Will’s parents where Ada played with a calculator she found (she is her mother’s daughter after all!) and had spaghetti. Baby girl loves spaghetti. She had to have a bath afterward. We exchanged gifts post-clean up and Ada got some adorable new clothes (including pants in a “long” size so perhaps her stringbean legs will be covered as the temperatures drop!) and a singing hippo that she loves to watch.
On Christmas Day, we went to my sister’s house (and I neglected to get any photos). We had a tapas style meal and exchanged gifts. Ada made out once again – girl has a whole new wardrobe – and I ate most of a charcuterie plate by myself.
During that strange week between Christmas and New Years, Ada and I went up to Andersonville to check out the Swedish American Museum. The children’s museum is pretty fantastic. Ada’s a little young for it still, but we will be back. We also checked out Women and Children First and Ada got a new book.
We ended the year at the park (wearing shoes this time, I swear!)