I read another blog this week called Ironic Mom. She is a Canadian mom of twins and writes very funny and honest posts about life with her kids. I also hear her read with her Canadian accent in my head which makes it even better. Her post last week was about ten milestones that her twins had reached that she was grateful for and I started thinking of my own list. There aren’t ten of them, but they are huge milestones so I figure a few will do.

Sleeping through the night – Baylie might be the only kid I know that waited until she was almost 7 months old to finally sleep for a consecutive 8-11 hours at night. I am not a person who deals well with a lack of sleep, and after roughly 210 weeks of rarely sleeping more than 4 hours at a time, I was near death. I looked like a zombie and felt like one too. Finally, the excitement and exhaustion of getting together with family let her sleep for 10 hours Christmas Eve.  It was a Christmas Miracle!

Taking less than 40 minutes to drink a bottle – I never knew it would take so long to feed a baby. The first month of her life, it felt like it took hours to feed her. I remember watching reruns of talk shows at 3am willing her to eat faster.

Feeding herself – for a long time, Bay was a really picky eater. I would have to trick her into taking a bite of food and then push her to finish a few bites so that she would actually eat solid foods. Once she could feed herself finger foods, all that went away. She could feed herself what she wanted and at her own pace. I wasn’t locked to a chair but could make coffee, feed dogs or, gasp, feed myself!

Walking – I was so excited for B to walk. And then when she did, I was ready to jump off the roof. She was into everything that had previously been out of reach. She was also suddenly silent – there were no more hands slapping the ground as she crawled so she was able to slip away when I wasn’t looking. She instantly knew how to climb the couch, chairs, tables, walls and proceeded to do so often. After 2 days of baby proofing,  I was suddenly back in love with her walking. We could play chase, she could carry things, push things, be set down in a public place without me worrying about her contracting something horrible off the floor.

Understanding what I’m saying – We have been at the point for a few months now where Bay can comprehend what I’m saying. It’s amazing to be able to communicate with her. I love asking her where her nose, ears, fingers, belly button and booty are and she can find all of them. She understands that “bye bye” means that the person, place or thing is going away – or more likely that we’re going away. So when it’s time to leave the park we say “bye bye park” and she gets it. No tears, no fuss, just time to go. Mostly I like asking he to pick up all the toys out of the living room (one by one I identify them, but hey, it’s a start) and take them to her room. Some might call it child labor, I call it creative parenting.

I can’t wait for what is coming next. Although I’m concerned that when we get to the talking phase that I’m going to really regret not curbing my snarky remarks and swearing…