Smoosh & Hug

Hugs from a baby must be one of the best things in the world.  Jaime has always been snuggly and has been giving hugs for a while but lately they are a whole new level of melt-your-heart-in-an-instant.  Something about how he stops what he is doings, does his double-time crawl over, puts his arms around your neck as he smooshes he cheek next to yours and just gives you the biggest squeeze that he can.  It is so sweet. Sometimes you get a kiss instead of a cheek smoosh.  If you have had a tough day at the office, one of these hugs will help you forget all about it and bring you right into the moment.  I love this little boy of mine.

Blossoms

Even though I no longer have a backyard or roof deck garden, I feel so lucky to live in a neighborhood with two amazing parks. The cherry blossoms were beautiful and such spirit lifters. The extra color and pretty fragrance was a nice addition to our weekend family walks. You just can't beat fresh blossoms in their power to create a cheerful atmosphere.

Raising a Reader

Before I was pregnant, when I thought of having kids I pictured sharing my love of specific books with a daughter.  Now I think about sharing my love of reading with my son and can't wait to see what kinds of crazy boy books he will be reading and talking about some day.

I am doing my best to raise my little boy into a reader.  I am determined that he escape being part of that stat on boys not performing as well in languages from a lack of reading. 

And I started this quest young.  I started reading to Jaime daily just a couple of days home from the hospital.  In those early days and months he would look at pictures and it became a daily practice... it was something to do to start setting routines when there was no routine.  As he got older he was well versed in storytime. Now he will sit and turn the pages in his favorite books by himself or bring my the books he wants to have read.

For the longest time we only had a handful of books.  I mean, he didn't understand that he was getting the same books read daily on repeat!  I can recite them by heart.  Three singing pigs sing La-La-La!

Our book collection is growing.  And my little boy is getting extremely active.  He is in that crazy crawling and wanting to walk phase where they realize how much there is to explore. But we still read every morning and evening. 

It makes my heart explode when he is so excited about the story that his little feet start moving and he puts his face right up to the book to get a little closer look or turns and gives me a smile with his hand resting on mine.  Reading time is making for some sweet little moments. 

Life lately

 Snapshots from the camera on my phone and random musings...

 

Every month I say, this is the best age yet.  Jaime is doing all kinds of fun stuff lately, crawling, giving big huge hugs, standing up in his crib, "reading" by himself, saying dada, etc.  We have fallen into a pretty good routine and quite simply have lots of fun together. 

We hit the jackpot with childcare.  Not having family nearby to ocassionally help with the bug has been more difficult than I would have expected.  The work day has been covered for a while but the evening/weekend babysitter was harder to find.  It felt like the biggest accomplishment to have that settled.  And so we celebrated with a date night. 

My most favorite time of the week is Saturday and Sunday mornings between 6:30am-9am.  Jaime is an early bird so we are up by 6:30am every day of the week but Saturdays the three of us hang out on the sofa.  We sip our coffee or milk.  Chit chat.  Clap our hands.  Simple stuff but it is magic. 

I try to find something fun for each weekend and this past weekend that was VH1 Save the Music Family Day.  Most of the activities were geared towards an older kid but Jaime had fun at the drum circle and a storytime.

I think I am officially settled at work - I have found a favorite coffee spot, deli and bagel place.  I have also located a very good burger (fyi- so far I vote Chicago for the volume of places with excellent burgers) and a great brunch spot in my neighborhood. 

A Morning in Soho

We made the trek down to Soho for the morning last Saturday.  The plan was to attend storytime at the MoMA Design Store but its start time was too close to the end of nap time and so we missed it.  Instead our plans became coffee at the cafe with a bottle for the bug followed by a walk.  We popped into a few stores but I find shopping as a trio of three overwhelming (especially as so many stores have loud music making me feel stressed - doesn't equal impulse purchasing, just the impulse to get the hell out of there).  So a couple of pillows and a few snapshots later and we were headed back uptown.  I love looking around Soho - the buildings, the fire escapes - it is eye-catching.