Walker

I'm calling it.  Luca is officially a fulltime walker at 13.5 months old.  He's actually been able to walk for a couple of months now, but much preferred crawling as his method of getting somewhere fast.  He would take about three steps, decide he'd had enough of the slow pace and drop down to his hands and knees to scurry off. 

And scurry he does.  Luca (or Lou, as we've begun to call him) is into everything, constantly leaving a path of destruction in his wake.  I know you are never supposed to compare your two children, but these two could not be more opposite if they tried.  While Jude contemplated every decision he made, Luca throws caution to the wind.  He's headstrong, motivated, stubborn, and hilarious.  Kiddo loves an audience.  I'm pretty sure he will be our performer.

No walking blog post would be complete without a few photos of his accomplishments!  And maybe one of a defeat. 

A New Outlook

I've never been one for resolutions.  But come January 1 every year, when that beautiful white slate of a fresh new year is laid out in front of me waiting to be written on, it's hard to not get a little excited to plan.  There are always the usuals- lose weight, exercise more, look good in a bikini, get more sleep, etc.  And of course I plan on accomplishing every single one of those.  My biggest goal for the next year is to work on being less pessimistic and more optimistic.  With motherhood, my anxiety levels have definitely risen.  I understand this is normal and I'm not racing to a psychiatrist to get meds to counteract it or anything.  But I do find myself always predicting or preparing for a worst-case scenario.  Then by the time the scenario has played out (mostly not the way I had predicted), I realized that I didn't even get to experience it fully for fear of the worst happening.  And I don't want to live like that anymore.

Like any year, there some not-so-great things about 2012.  Rather than focusing on those, I'm going to forget about them completely and focus on what I really loved about the year.

Maternity Leave
Luca was born in November of 2011.  I took a 3 month maternity leave from my job at a software company to stay at home with him after his birth.  I love this time period with my babies.  It's mostly hazy days filled with breastfeeding, catnaps, diaper changes, and soothing.  But it's also what the first memories are made of.  Learning my little boy's facial expressions, what he loves, what he hates, and falling in love with each other.  I went back to work on Valentine's Day 2012- with a heart filled with more love than I thought it could hold.

A Potty Trained JudeWhile I was pregnant with Luca, I naively thought that I could have Jude completely out of diapers by then.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  At two and a half years old, he was still stubbornly refusing to use the potty.  We decided to give up and just let things happen on there own.  The way I figured, every adult male you meet is potty trained (well, most anyways) so he'll get it eventually.  We left his potty in the bathrooms and consistently asked him if he wanted to go and said "Ok, well, it's there if you change your mind" when he heard the familiar "No."  One day, seemingly out of the blue on Easter weekend, Jude announced that he wasn't a baby anymore and that he would like to start going on the potty.  And that was that.  There was no indication prior to that declaration that he had any intention of quitting diapers.  We went with it and the next couple of days yielded a few accidents and then he was good.  Both while awake and sleeping!  It was awesome to not have to wash two sets of cloth diapers every couple of days!  At the same time, it was very bittersweet in that it meant my baby truly was growing up.  The very last time Jude wore a diaper- 2 years 9 months old.

Lactation Exultation
Having a gigantic freezer full of breastmilk might be an odd thing to list as one of the best things about someone's year.  But, for a fulltime working mama who wanted to breastfeed exclusively for at least one year, it's a pretty big deal.  If anyone still following my blog remembers my first year with Jude, there was alot of stress about pumping towards the end.  My supply plummeted the last few months and I was having to take tons of herbal supplement, pump five times a day every day and add power pump sessions in the evenings just to meet what Jude ate during the day at daycare.  I did make it to a year of breastmilk for Jude but it was a definite struggle.  Finally, at 12.5 months, my supply was down to nothing and we were done breastfeeding.  This time around, everything seemed to work in my favor.  I didn't have the horrible oversupply and engorgement in the beginning like I did with Jude.  We didn't experience any latch or clogged duct issues.  And boy was I able to pump!  So much so that I was able to donate frozen breastmilk to a dear friend who needed it for her little boy.  Luca is 13.5 months now and I am still pumping for one of my bestest friends in the whole world who had to quit breastfeeding her three month old to undergo chemo and radiation for breast cancer.  My supply is definitely dwindling now that Luca has dropped nursing sessions to morning and night, but I'm going to keep going for my beautiful friend as long as I can.  More to come on that later.

Family Vacation to Estes Park, CO
This October, we embarked on our first family vacation with the four of us.  We made an 8 hour trek up to the Colorado Mountains to Estes Park.  It was such a beautiful and memorable experience.  The weather was perfect, the lodge we stayed in was amazing, and the wedding of my first cousin to his beautiful bride was breathtaking.  Luca was 10 months old and didn't appreciate the long car ride so we did break the trip up into two day increments, staying overnight in western Nebraska each way.  It was a week long trip I won't forget and made me fall in love with my little family all over again.

Creighton Baseball Games
We've discovered there is no greater time than going to a ball game as a family.  Jude is a baseball nut.  The kid has a passion for the sport like no other.  Our city is lacking in professional sports, but they sure make up for it in college sports.  We bought season tickets to Creighton University baseball and had a blast going to games this summer.  Season tickets have already been renewed for the 2013 season!

Promotion

I'm blessed to have a great career with a company I have alot of dedication and respect for.  I've been working there for 5 1/2 years and just had my fourth promotion this fall since starting with the company.  I love what I do and I love the team I work with.  I'm so blessed and always grateful.  I know plenty out there that are not so lucky.

Montessori

I have definite plans to touch in this in much greater detail in a post to come.  But, we left our daycare that Jude and Luca have both known since they were born.  There were many reasons we felt compelled to take the boys out.  We researched and visited with a Montessori center in our city and absolutely fell in love with the program.  Much more to come.

I know I am forgetting plenty of wonderful moments of 2012 that deserve a spot in the best list.  But for now, this is what plays out first and foremost in my head.  I have a feeling 2013 is going to be even better.

Eternally grateful.