Looking through the Lens of the Year.

Friday night we drove to a sacred spot in Chelsea’s family. It is about three hours north of Sacramento, along the coast, through winding roads and hills. We left around 7:30 PM  for the sake of the baby. Yeah, that’s a new thing: traveling during baby sleepy times. It’s ingenious. (Baby tip #56 - Drive when babies sleep - Just to be clear…there are no set numbers for the baby tips…yet.) She slept the whole way, this is something we discovered over the holidays as we drove down to Southern California.

During this drive, the rain fell steadily for the second half of the journey but Chelsea handled it like a champ. My SoCal nerves would have been frayed. This spot is called The Sea Ranch and someone told me once that it is a magical place. A place where ionic particles rise from the crashing waves that run roughshod over the roughened coastline. The ions float and encircle this whole coastal area. I am not sure of the veracity of that claim since I have never really looked into it, but I like the story regardless. But, anecdotally, I always feel a little refreshed coming away from here. The baby naps on my chest, while Chelsea is out studying...So now, I can reflect on what has been happening these last few months:

First, not much has changed on our front. I am still working and Chelsea is still working, but one thing that did happen was she did not pass the California Bar Exam. She missed it by the skin of her teeth, just 2 percentage points. That was pretty stressful considering she was ready to move into a full time position at her job. But they kept her on and have put her on an hourly wage rather than a salary. But despite the drawback, there are benefits, the money isn’t the same, but she is able to adjust her schedule a little better to give her some study time. She’s taking the Bar again at the end of February.  GO Chelsea!

Tori has changed dramatically since our last update. She is walking now, which changed our lives forever. She took her first “steps” on October 30th. These were only 4 at a time before she plopped down, but by the time her first birthday came around on December 18 she was walking everywhere.Chelsea says she feels like just when we learned the rule of the game, Tori learned to walk and changed them on us. She has also been forming words. She can mimic what we say, but it isn’t perfect since she is still waiting for some teeth and her pronunciation needs a little work. But her syllables are coming along nicely. She can say things like “cheese” and “daddy” and, thanks to her T-ma, she also bows and gives thanks to here food during meal times. It’s cute, if not a little strange, but we love it.

She has pretty set routine, bath around 6:15-6:30, depending on the day, then being rocked and nursed down to sleep after. So by 7 on most days she is out. She wakes up now again, and hasn’t mastered the 'Sleeping Through the Night'. Some days she does and some days she doesn’t, especially since her teeth have been growing lately (Baby Tip #57: teeth ruin everything). Moreover, during the day she still attends day care where they love her. Chelsea drops her off about 7:45 in the morning, and then I pick her up between 4:15 and 5 depending on my work stuff. She naps with the bigger kids from 12:30 to 3. We are in awe at how they get her nap so long. Her weekend naps aren’t nearly as long! (Baby Tip #58: If you find people who can get your baby to nap, keep them round forever and buy them chocolate!)

The other day Chelsea and I were eating at a happy hour with Tori (Baby tip #59; going out to early happy hours and/or day drinking is key; brunch also rocks - although now "brunch" is really breakfast because the kid is up at 6 am...) and we were talking about the past year as being parents. We were reflecting on what we have learned. I made a joke referencing Malcolm Gladwell’s 10, 000 hour theory: as long as you do something for 10,000 hours you master it. I did a quick calculation and realized we had clocked about 8,856 hours as parents for Tori! We rejoiced! Only 1,100 hours to parenting mastery! However, we quickly came to the conclusion that there is a flaw in that theory. In a regular job, you perform the same tasks over and over again, and if you do that for 10,000 hours you master them. There isn’t much flux. But, wouldn't you know, babies change. So despite our 8,000 plus hours, Tori's constant evolution from just being a blob to crawling, talking, walking, grabbing, feeding herself, drinking from a cup, and evolving ways of playing, that theory is moot.

We learned so much in this last year and a month, but I feel like we are still learning every day. Every new experience she has is a new one for us (and her!). Which is great, it keeps things interesting, but it is extremely exhausting. There is a ton of joy, but there are also times of struggle (Baby Tip #60: The Struggle is real). But I wouldn’t change it for the world.