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I just put my sweet daughter to bed after a full day of indoor play. The 20* temps (wind chills in teens) are keeping us indoors. Jemma seemed content playing with her musical instruments, kitchen dishes, and pushing her doll stroller around the basement. She even stayed in her PJs all day. There’s something about the warmth and comfort of fleece footed PJs! I wasn’t planning on leaving the house at all today so I didn’t see the point in putting another outfit on her. I’m pretty sure that will be the trend this winter. It’s a good thing I stocked up on some fleece footed PJs at a local flea market and yard sales. I still can’t believe my daughter is outgrowing her 12 month clothes and starting to wear 18 months clothes. She is growing so fast! I am the mom to a 14 month old…what?!?! How did that happen??? Jemma has grown so much, developed many new skills, and learned so much over the past 14 months. It makes me proud, but also sad because my baby is turning into a toddler! With the time going so fast, I really need to be more present and soak up the little moments that make up our days together.
Today was bittersweet as my husband is back to his long days of working and coaching swimming. It was nice having him home for extended periods of time over the holidays. The snow even canceled his swim practices this past weekend so he was home all New Year’s weekend and New Year’s Day 🙂 I miss him a lot and would love it if he was able to come home by 3:15 every afternoon, but I know he is putting in extra hours so I can be home full-time with our daughter. The days feel long at times, but the weeks and months are going fast!
My day started at 7:45 when I started to hear my daughter stir. I set an alarm to wake up earlier, but going to bed at 11:30 the night before resulted in hitting the snooze button a few times. December was a busy month and I was up late most nights preparing for Christmas….I was doing online shopping, wrapping presents, decorating the house, and, of course, watching Christmas movies with my husband. My normal schedule involves going to bed on the earlier side and waking up around 5:00 to run and mentally prepare myself for the day. I need to get back to this schedule!
My daughter wakes up babbling and I love listening to her sweet voice. My husband bought us a security camera that we use as a video monitor in our daughter’s bedroom. So, I can watch her talk to her stuffed animals and then throw them out of the crib. I have a feeling my sweet Jemma will be a storyteller 🙂 While she is babbling, I got myself up, face washed, dressed and made the bed. I folded the laundry that was left in the dryer overnight….the clothes were cold! I brewed some coffee and fed our cat….he was following me and meowing until I fed him! I almost tripped on him a few times.
Oh that smile! I love seeing Jemma’s smile when I go into her room in the morning. She wakes up so happy and it warms my heart. Jemma truly is a happy baby and she brings so much joy to our lives and the people with whom she interacts. She waves and says hi to the people we pass when grocery shopping or walking around Target. I just love her! I’m so lucky to be her mama 🙂
I’ve been trying to wean Jemma off of breastfeeding. She more or less nurses for comfort at this point, as I nurse her consistently before her nap and at night before bed. The morning feeding is the one I am working on stopping right now. Some mornings, she won’t ask for it and will eat a good breakfast. Some mornings, she is asking for it by pulling on my shirt and not letting me set her down. This morning, I put her right in the high chair and we started our day with breakfast. I usually let her play for a half hour or so while I am preparing breakfast or doing a few things in the kitchen before we eat. Today’s breakfast was a leftover piece of french toast that I had made over the weekend. Jemma gobbled it up in addition to some banana. After she ate her french toast and banana, I set her down in our living room play area while I made myself a bowl of oatmeal. I was so cold that I wanted something nice and warm to eat. Oatmeal is definitely a go-to breakfast of mine. While I was eating my oatmeal, Jemma was very interested in it so I gave her some. She loved every bite…”ummm” she said after each bite.
Jemma and I played quite a bit with her toys in the living room. She was very interested in her Laugh & Learn First Words Smart Puppy. She enjoys putting the blocks into the chute and pushing the button to send the blocks down the chute. I love that there are different levels of play so it grows with her. There is something about that red nose because Jemma loves pushing it over and over. Button pushing is a passion of hers, so I’m not surprised she loves pushing the puppy’s nose. After that, we were pointing at the cat toys! I handed Jemma a few of the wands to play with and she started waving them. This peaked our cat’s interest!
Playtime continued down in the basement when Jemma was getting bored with the living room and kept pointing towards the basement door. She went right over to her kitchen and started pulling out all the dishes. After playing with her kitchen for a little, she became interested in her musical instruments, which were a first birthday gift. She pulled out the harmonica and handed it to me. I played a few notes and then put it back in the instrument basket. She pulled it out and handed it to me again. This kept going on for awhile. She enjoyed hearing the music I was playing for her, which wasn’t anything special as I don’t know how to play the harmonica, but she doesn’t know that!
Naptime was around 11. As soon as Jemma was getting fussy and uninterested in playing, I took her upstairs to change her diaper and nurse her. She fell asleep instantly and I laid her down in her crib. Naptime = Mommy Freetime 🙂 First, I did my daily strength workout. Then, I did some things I needed to do for a running website and, before I knew it, Jemma was waking up from her nap! I made myself a salad for lunch and ate that while Jemma was talking and playing with her stuffed animals. She did that for almost an hour! I got Jemma up from her nap and fed her lunch….open-faced grilled cheese and an applesauce pouch. Open-faced grilled cheese is a go to meal for Jemma because it is easy and quick. It is also healthy with the cheese and whole wheat toast. Jemma is not interested in drinking milk yet so I try to feed her cheese and yogurt for the vitamins and minerals. I know she will take to milk in her own time. I just continue to offer it each day and some days she wants none while other days she will drink several sips.
The rest of our afternoon was spent in the basement. Jemma was harder to please this afternoon. I tried a lot of different activities to keep her entertained and neither activity lasted very long. We “colored” on a piece of paper, watched and danced to “Baby Shark” song on YouTube a few times, played with her Beat BowWow. She liked dancing to the music! I normally don’t nurse Jemma during the afternoon, but she kept tugging at my shirt. She nursed for at least 20 minutes and then was perfectly content playing on her own. I guess she just needed some comfort.
Our day ended with dinner and a bath. Normally, I give Jemma a bath after dinner, but not today. I gave her a bath while dinner was baking in the oven. Jemma always has fun taking a bath. She likes playing with her rubber duckies and splashing in the water. She gets a bath every other day since she doesn’t really get “dirty”. I love the smell of the Johnson’s Baby Shampoo!! Jemma’s skin is always so soft and smells so good after bathtime 🙂
Dinner was Parmesan Roasted Carrots and Goldfish Crusted Chicken Nuggets. Jemma also wanted some of the cucumber from my salad. I cut the cucumber into the smallest pieces because I’m so nervous she’ll choke! Overall, she is a pretty good eater. She loves her fruit!! In fact, I can’t put the fruit in her sight because she will not eat anything else. We treat fruit as dessert in our home 🙂
Time for bed! Jemma goes to bed early, around 6:30, ever night. She nurses and falls fast asleep. When I lay her in her crib, she rolls right over to her belly, tucks her arms under her chest and sticks her butt up in the air. She usually sleeps in the corner of her crib. She looks so cozy 🙂
That was my day with Jemma 🙂 I really enjoyed the moments of playing with my daughter. She is growing up so fast and I want to cherish my moments home with her <3