New room!

Although one of the bedrooms in our house had previously been a little girl's room, we decided to set up Molly's bedroom in a different room. Unfortunately this room was painted a dark, chocolate brown. Nice color, but not particularly appropriate for a little girl's room and it also made the room feel small. So we decided before this heat wave set in, we'd take advantage of the two days of cool temperatures & low humidity and paint Molly's room. We went with "crocus petal" (a very light lavender/purple color). It turned out great & really brightens up Molly's room.

Given Molly's extremely observant nature, we were excited to see her reaction to her new paint color... Here's a little clip of Molly's reaction. I think she likes it! The wall immediately behind her just has primer on it, but the wall adjacent is painted so hopefully you can see some of Molly's new "crocus petal" walls.

Shoes off, shoes on...

There always seems to be a new favorite pass time for Molly... Right now, Molly loves taking off her socks and shoes so that she can try to put them back on herself.

She'll continue to do this throughout the day, but likes to change things up a bit too. Off with the old shoes...

Now it's time to try putting on mom's running shoes...

How about mom's sandals?

Maybe mom's socks first?

This morning Molly felt she needed fancy shoes to go with her PJ's and bib... A burgeoning fashionista??

Very pretty.... Okay, now back to the practical shoes & off to school where I also apparently like to take off all the other kids shoes when the teachers aren't looking! Silly girl...

Walking!!

Molly finally started to walk in the last week!! Last Wednesday, she started taking a step or two in between Jeremy and I. Then on Friday, Jeremy had Molly out in the front yard as he was watering. Molly loves "helping" daddy out in the yard, which essentially amounts to Molly raking the mulch in the flower beds. She's not a fan of crawling on the mulch, probably because it doesn't feel very good on her hands and knees. Perfect motivation for some more walking, right? Well, indeed, it was... Below are two video clips, one is of Molly taking a few steps between us and then another clip of her taking about 7 steps to help daddy rake some mulch. She was a little unsteady at the very end, but overall, we were so excited for her and super proud! Soon after that, she came inside and almost walked the entire length of the living room. She still prefers to crawl or hold onto things, but we couldn't be more excited for Molly reaching the walking milestone! I have to admit, it was such a cool, exciting and almost overwhelming feeling to watch her go. She seemed pretty excited about it too!

Sorry about the orientation of the video!

Here's Molly's 7 steps in the front yard!

Daily exercise routine...

Every night after dinner, we all get our daily exercise running laps and chasing each other around the house. Molly still "runs" with her walker, but we're very excited to report that in the last two days she's taken a couple of steps on her own! We haven't been able to get it on camera yet because she'll only walk from me to Jeremy and back, i.e. no one to hold the camera. But hopefully soon we can share with you Molly's progress towards walking. In the meantime, here's a video clip of our daily exercise routine. As you'll hear, Molly gets very excited when running laps. While we should probably work on teaching Molly to "use her inside voice" it's just way to much fun to hear her squeal in delight!

Bean counting...

Molly recently discovered that she can eat soggy cheerios by sticking her finger through to "o" and then bringing the cheerio to her mouth. As a result, she tries to get almost all of her food to stick to her finger to bring it to her mouth. Actually when you watch her, it looks like good practice for her fine motor skills. However, when she first started this, we wondered if it was a little obsessive, but fortunately after a while she'll just pick the food up and eat it if she can't get it to stick properly to her finger. But it is interesting to watch how focused she can get. Here's a little clip of Molly eating one of her favorite foods with her new found finger-poking technique... beans!

A sense of humor....

Molly's really starting to show us that she's got a sense of humor. For example, she often leans backwards over the arm of her high chair staring at you upside down just waiting for you to tickle her chin. Or she'll intentionally fall backwards on the couch or the bed, which is a prompt for more tickles and hugs. Her latest thing is teasing you, as if she's going to hand you something but then quickly takes it away and giggles. Here's a little clip of Molly acting like she's going to give you her bib, which she often does so that you'll put it on yourself and then hand it back for her to put it on herself, over and over...however, this time she's just teasing us and quickly pulls the bib back before you can grab it.

Approaching a full transition to cups...

We're getting very close to a full transition over to sippy cups with Molly. As of about a week ago we transitioned Molly over to a sippy cup in the morning & at bedtime (i.e. no more nursing). We were a little nervous about how she'd do with no longer nursing at bedtime, but she's done just fine. Fortunately, I think Molly was as equally ready as I was to gain/regain more independence and be done with breastfeeding. While I fully believe that the decision to breastfeed and for how long you might breastfeed is an entirely personal decision and a decision that should not be criticized or judged, I have to say I'm very proud that Molly and I were able to make it a whole year. That was my goal & I am grateful that I was able to reach it.

I think part of the smooth transition has been Molly's excitement for her sippy cups. Although maybe she's a little too excited about her cups...Lately she's been frequently grabbing both her cup of water and her cup of milk and hugging them both simultaneously!

Despite Molly's affection for her cups, we've been working hard on teaching Molly that the cups aren't a toy, i.e. "When we're done, we place our cup on the tray or give it to mommy or daddy. We don't throw it on the floor!". We've also started giving her a real cup with water to show her that the water spills if you don't place the cup down correctly. Of course, we've had our fair share of spills, but the past few days Molly's been doing a pretty good job of putting her cup back into the cup holder. It's become a bit of a game at times, but we've watched her purposefully trying to put the cup down upright in other situations that it's clear she's starting to grasp the concept. Here's a little clip of Molly's progress...

Happy Father's Day!

Although this was Jeremy's 2nd Father's Day, it felt a little bit more like his 1st since last year, he spent FD driving home from our friend's Stephanie & Marcus' wedding in Tennessee. So Molly & I wanted to make it a special day for Jeremy!

We started off the day with a great breakfast at Katalina's Cafe...Here's Molly reading with daddy as we patiently wait for our yummy pancake balls & breakfast tacos.

Here's Molly more interested in the table next to us rather than the camera!

After breakfast, we were off to Blendon Woods Metro Park for a morning hike before the rain hit us in the afternoon.

After our hike, we headed back home for lunch & a nap, well for one of us at least! In the afternoon, Molly of course wanted to "swing" for a bit with dad. Swinging on our front porch or in the swing hanging from our tree is a morning ritual for Molly and daddy. We can no longer say the word "swing" while in ear shot of Molly because if we do she heads straight to daddy and starts to whine until he takes her out to her swing. Good thing she can't spell yet...

 Later that afternoon, Molly and daddy took a ride to the garden center to look for some native wild flowers to add to the front yard while I started getting our special father's day dinner together. Overall a nice 1st/2nd Father's Day! Molly let daddy know that he deserved a big round of applause for being the "best daddy" ever!

Marching Molly...

One of Molly's latest "tricks" is marching. She finds it pretty amusing actually! Her marching looks a bit more like the cha-cha, but either way it's pretty cute if you ask me. Here's a little sample...

Working on the confidence to walk...

As I've mentioned before, Molly is definitely a very cautious little girl. She tends to be quite analytical with new things, carefully observing and watching others first before deciding whether she wants to try it herself. We try hard to encourage Molly so that she gains the confidence to try something new, always offering lots of praise, using positive modes of discipline (i.e. "stop, please" instead of "no"), but in the end it's clear that she's going to do things only when she's good and ready to.

This has been particularly true with walking... Molly's been pulling herself up and cruising for quite a while now. I can remember a couple of months ago her teachers at daycare saying that they thought she was going to start walking "any day now".  Knowing Molly's cautious personality, I was doubtful and correctly so. It's been about two months now that Molly's been walking all over the place with her walker or holding onto our hands and not at all really interested in trying to walk herself. She's gotten quite good with the walker, maneuvering through small spaces, turning corners like a race car driver, etc. We've tried to encourage her to stand on her own to work on her balance, but generally, she almost instantly cautiously lowers herself down to the floor rather than stand there. She's quite good at going from standing down to the floor and clearly has the control and balance to lower herself without just plopping to her butt or knees. Yet, still she hasn't had the confidence to stay standing on her own.

However, in the last week she seems to finally be moving in that direction! As she cruises around with her walker, she'll stop, let go and often start clapping. Whether she's applauding her efforts or just clapping to the music that's often playing in the background, who knows but it's encouraging seeing her start to gain the confidence to "let go". Here are two clips of Molly working on her balance... The second clip I think is good evidence that she's got the skills, but just needs to gain the confidence. You'll see her actually lifting the walker up (which I think is her imitating how we move the walker around)!

It's exciting to watch her get closer to walking, but at the same time I suspect we'll wish she was still just crawling once she starts!

6 months vs 1 year...

One benefit of Molly's slow-growing hair is that in pictures, she looks quite similar to how she did over 6 months ago. The picture on the left is of Molly at exactly 6 months old and on the right is Molly at 1-year. Helps me to forget how fast she's growing up!

2 weeks of birthday celebrations...

Well I've been doing a horrible job of "keeping up with Molly"! Here is finally a post about Molly's 1st birthday celebration, or should I say 2 weeks of mini-celebrations. The first celebration started with a visit from mom mom & pop pop Brooks one week before the big day.

We enjoyed a nice short-hike at High Banks metropark and some time at the park (despite Molly's expression in the photo!).

Playtime in the yard with pop pop & with her new water table from Aunt Meg, Uncle Chris & Cousin Hunter...

Snuggle time with mom mom and in her new "Molly" chair from mom mom and pop pop! (Ignore Molly's puffy eyes.... thank you allergies and colds!)

And the first round of birthday cake... She stuck her finger in took a taste and that was about it. Quite surprising given Molly's enormous sweet tooth!

Next celebration came on Molly's actual birthday... May 18th! This was a small one with just mom and dad and some fish and chips at Old Bag of Nails. Earlier in the day Molly celebrated with her friends at daycare, along with some homemade blueberry muffins, a balloon & some bubbles! Here's the birthday girl at one year old!

That Sunday we invited some of our friends over for a proper birthday celebration, only we weren't particularly good about pictures! Hard to host, watch Molly and take pictures... Here are a few though of Molly and her birthday, bumble-berry pies. Sweet-little Naomi was kind enough to help Molly blow out her candle! Molly really got a kick out of everyone singing happy birthday to her.

The following week it was up to Chicago for her last birthday celebration with grandma & grandpa!
Started with a nice morning out at the Chicago Botanical Gardens.

 Then it was a wonderful birthday dinner with Aunt Karen, Uncle Ken & Jack!

The next day we were off early in the morning to the Lincoln Park Zoo before the heat set in.

Then it was home to cool off in the cute little pool that grandpa bought for Molly!

Despite a bad cold, ear infection & four teeth coming in at the same time, Molly had a good time at grandma & grandpa's! Very had to believe that it's been a whole year since our little Molly "bean" came into our lives.  A few good friends have mentioned the phrase... "the days are long, but the years are fast". I couldn't agree more & wouldn't trade a single moment of it! Well maybe a couple minutes... ;)