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.

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. 

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. 

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.

When we decided to make the move to NYC one of the first things that I added to the list of things we have to do is the NYRR 9+1 program to get into the NYC marathon.  The program is to run 9 races and volunteer once all within one year and then you are able to get into the marathon.  There is little chance that I would be able to get into this marathon otherwise so I am super excited to have the opportunity to do this program.

Saturday we went out in the mist/rain to run the first of nine races.  It was my first race post-baby. And my longest post-baby run. 

We then mapped out our strategy for finishing the program and timing our next eight races.  Sunday is our second race.  Spring is going to be busy as I don't want to chance being able to get into the 2014 marathon!  Goals are good.

It is a load of laundry every other day (I think you can go to three days but I keep to two) but in the early months when Jaime was spitting up constantly we were going to be doing laundry frequently anyways. If we didn't have laundry in our building I would give up CDs.  But it becomes part of your routine just like any household chore.

When we started solids I almost gave up.  I draw the line at rinsing them in the toilet. :)  So I started using the biodegradable flushable liners and it has kept things pretty easy and less messy. 

Overall it has been really good.  Dan confessed that he wasn't totally sure about the cloth diaper thing at first but now agrees that they are easy peasy.  

And cloth diapered fluffy butts are cute.

I had been planning to wait until Jaime is older to make the trek to Soho to visit the Children's Museum of the Arts but with blustery cold weekend days we needed an indoor activity so thought why not.  This is a cool place and an early school aged kid would love it.  Most of the interactive stations are better for that pre-school to early elementary age but we were able to find stuff for our seven month old too.  And he loved watching the other kids.

We are still getting used to the family scene and this was a pretty intense jump into that world... to say it was busy would be an understatement.  You pretty much needed to watch where you walked or you could step on a kid.  Seriously.  But it was a fun space with lots of energy.  We will be going back.

I would definitely keep it on the list of fun things to do in Manhattan with kiddos.

And,

There is a pretty cute spot for lunch across the street.  Jaime loves going out to eat and this spot was pretty spacious making it easy with a little.

Fresh snow seems to make people a little giddy.  After the storm this past weekend we ended up on a walk in Central Park and it was seriously packed with people out having so much fun playing in the snow. 

We did the typical new parent thing with taking Jaime out to see the snow.  After a failed attempt to see the firecracker Chinese new year festival (omg- too crowded for me, it was insane) we stumbled upon a fantastic spot for brunch... don't you love it when that happens, when a random walk by spot ends up being the perfect spot. It was the type of spot that I am such a sucker for - big branches of cherry blossoms, subway tile, distressed wood tables, cool lights, oh yeah and good food. 

We also enjoyed the excuse of slushy, snowing streets for staying in for lazy family time hanging out, watching our baby amaze us with all of his new tricks... slow down time!

The recent Ann Hamilton installation at the Armory was perfect for a family afternoon outing.  And an interactive art exhibit definitely falls into the category of something I normally wouldn't put on the calendar. 

We had fun.  And of course going on a Saturday made for crowds.  There was no way I was waiting for a spot to open under the big white curtain-thing...  So we enjoyed taking it in while on a swing and then let the next person in line enjoy their moment. 

I am sure we are going to have our favorites figured out pretty quickly but I hope that we find something different to sprinkle in every once in a while for family outings.

I am working on trying to figure out how to juggle everything and where to fit in the extras, like blogging.  Obviously, like everyone, I am trying to make sure that my actions are reflective of my priorities and values which are my family first.  But I really miss the blogging community. 

So back to it!  I am going to try to start blogging more often (probably not a regular schedule, but more often).  Rather than starting with today, here is a quick snippet of what I was up to the last quarter of 2012...

My maternity leave was extended when I resigned from my job due to relocating... but I was balancing (temporary) stay home mom with a job search. 

Jaime and I took a quick trip back to Iowa to visit family.  I flew with Jaime by myself twice before he was four months- it was actually pretty smooth. 

(he liked his grandpa - and nomming on his shoulder)

We holed up during Sandy and lived without power for a while.  We moved to Manhattan shortly thereafter.

(unpacking is tough.  unpacking with an infant into an apartment for which you have too much stuff... quite the challenge on patience.)

We started exploring Manhattan. 

We stayed local for the holidays. We didn't catch everything on my list of things to see but did manage to get to a few.  I am learning to slow the pace and expectation of what can be planned for a day with an infant.

And of course, simply hanging out with my favorites.

Also, I had a crash course in trying to balance being corporate girl on a mission to be a CMO (ha!) with being the best mom that I can be.  And have come up empty handed on finding ways to connect with other working moms in a new city (apparently stay at home moms are the only ones in mom groups in NYC?). **edit! realized I should clarify - I am trying to find mom groups that meet on the weekends as that is the only time I can meet, all I have found are ones meeting on say Tuesday at 10am which doesn't work for a mom going to the office during business hours. Do not mean that I wouldn't want to meet stay at home moms. :)**

So that wraps up 2012!  I am constantly thinking of things I want to post, so hopefully that balance thing gets figured out so I can find a little time to blog.