Monday, February 2, 2015

Looking Ahead

As we head toward Felicity's first birthday (no! stahp!), I'm starting to think about what I want her second year to look like. Her first year varied a lot, since she has grown and changed a ton, and as I've gotten used to this new role. The first few months were consumed with doctor's appointments, trying to figure out breastfeeding, get her ties taken care of, and figure out how to get some meat on her bones. After all that settled down, we spent the next few months going out ALL the time. Felicity was so happy out and so miserable at home. This meant I was pretty miserable at home, too! So we went to parks, libraries, museums, malls, Target, play dates, grocery stores, consignment shops and sales... I got us out for a few hours every day. Well, then came the realization that we needed to trim our budget and, though a lot of the stuff we do is free, it still takes gas to get there! Luckily, she was getting mobile around this same time and that seemed to help her enjoy being home more. So we cut out any of the places we would go and spend money (unless necessary or a super special treat), and concentrated on free and near home activities, while also enjoying our house and neighborhood more. I took over grocery shopping; maybe that's silly since Steven works at a grocery, store but both Felicity and I enjoy it, so it was something else for us to do during his long days at work. These days we go out about every other day to similar places as before- parks, play dates, grocery store, but by cutting down amount and places, we really are spending less. Now at home we play a lot more, we walk with our neighbors, and also go to the playground on our walks (45 min walk plus 30 min at the playground makes for a nice outing!). Since Felicity is walking, we can play in the driveway with her push toys, too. I'm able to do more housework now than I could the first 8 or so months and Felicity is fairly content to follow me around while I get chores done, though often I have to spend another 10-15 minutes tidying up whatever she got into ;). We have our deck all ready for spring with a baby gate to keep her contained, comfy chairs for me to sit in, and some outdoor toys.



So this brings me to her second year *gulp*. As she gets a bit older, we'll be able to do even more things at home like make homemade playdoh, color, and other fun activities. I'm really excited about that! I love little projects so it will be fun when she's at that age. I definitely want to keep going to story time and maybe we'll switch to toddler story time halfway through the year or so. Steven and I agreed to splurge on the local children's museum membership, which is $100 for the year and the 3 of us (or 2 of us when he's working) can go as much as we want. Being that we live 10-15 minutes away, it seems too good to pass up! Plus it's pretty empty Monday mornings so I think I might make it a weekly activity. I want to do more of the free museums downtown, since they tend to have areas that are conducive to toddlers and they're close by. Now that she's walking, I'm excited to take her to outdoor places this summer where she can explore like splash pads and our local eco station, which was impractical when she was not mobile or only crawling. I also found a list of activities for 12-16 month olds on her doctor's website that I want to begin incorporating. They are all play based, which is my preference since that's how babies and children learn, but there are definitely some great ideas that will help us mix it up at home a bit. I've gotten bad about having the tv on as background and I'm working on doing more Pandora and less tv. She doesn't watch it that much, but I just rather her hear music than tv, plus we have had spontaneous dance parties erupt from Pandora, which never happens from tv ;). I love my girl so much and can't wait to see what fun things we get into together this next year as she continues to grow and change! 

1 comment:

  1. We used to do zoo memberships as those paid for themselves in a couple visits.

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