1 Year of Hazel

My Dear Hazel Irene,

1 year ago you shook up our lives forever, and you made this world infinitely sweeter with your presence.

You have grown and developed at an incredible rate, and you have become a beautiful, independent baby. You have seven teeth in your smile. You are tall with thin arms and legs. You are 25.75 inches tall and weigh 20.6 pounds.  All your baby pudge seems to settle in your sweet cheeks and big ole belly.

You are wearing 12 month to 2T clothes. The warm weather is coming back, and you even got to wear a summer romper yesterday. Hooray for less clothing again!

Your hair has grown lighter and longer, although it has grown in quite strangely. The longest bits are behind your ears, but the hair on the very back of your head, where your bald spot used to be, is very short. I call it your angled bob, which is currently in style. It’s even goofier because sometimes one side will curl and the other side will be stick straight.

Your dark blue newborn eyes have lightened to a piercing bright blue. People comment on your eyes more than anything else. “Oh, what pretty blue eyes she has!” – says pretty much every person you smile at in the grocery store.

We have made it to the 1 year mark successfully breastfeeding, and I plan to keep it going into the next year as long as you don’t wean yourself (which you miiight do). You love, love, love to eat. All the time you are just asking for “more.” You are a bottomless pit! I think you are starting to get a little pickier. Sometimes, we will be feeding you and you shake your head “no” that you don’t want it, but then you immediately ask for “more” like you want something different. It’s been fun to start ordering you new things off of the kids menus when we go out.

You are so incredibly sweet to everyone. You are not fiercely attached to mom and dad, but very social instead. You are friendly and love people, but you are very independent so nobody can keep you for very long. You want to be off doing your thing, as you are always busy with important things to do and carry. Sometimes, we long for quiet snuggly moments with you on the couch, but those moments are few and far between. You would much rather be inspecting your books (or chewing on them) or carrying around your wallet. Recently though, if I get down on your level and stretch out my arms you’ll come running walking quickly into my arms for a quick but oh-so-precious hug. These are some of my favorite moments lately.

You LOVE your books. You are always flipping through pages, and sometimes you’ll even sit on our laps long enough to let us read them to you!

You are so even tempered with us and such a mild mannered baby, although you do have your crazy moments that make us think you may have completely lost your marbles. You make us look like good parents, but really I think it’s because you are a good baby.

…Although, we’ve gotten a couple reports from daycare that you sometimes lose your temper with the other babies and yell in their faces, and one day you even tried biting another little girl! I really hope that doesn’t continue.

Lately, your favorite thing to say is “uh-oh!” I think you purposefully drop things on the ground just so you can say it! You wake up from a nap, I hear the distinct sound of your pacifier hitting the ground, and “uh oh!” coming from the nursery.

Last night you really seemed to discover your belly button…  Your belly sticks out pretty far so you were having a tough time seeing it, but you were certainly trying to inspect it… and then you lifted your dad’s shirt to discover his belly button and then had to check if I had one too! … We might have a shirt lifter on our hands (guard your belly buttons, folks!)

I cannot believe an entire year has gone by. I have this tight knotted up feeling inside me because I just can’t find the words to describe the past year. It has been wondrous to watch you become you and to have to privilege of being your mom (and favorite person… shhh, don’t tell your dad).

 

We are so excited for your future, but right now it is so great to relish in the little moments that make up our everyday with you. You bring us such happiness. I hope that you will decide to have children of your own so that one day you can know how much we actually love you. I don’t think it’s possible to understand this kind of love until you experience it for yourself.

Loving you extra hard today,

Momma

{  Biggest carrot at Soulard Market - 1.5 lbs!  }

{  First time drawing with crayons  }

{  That belly!!!!  }

{  Presidential candidate in our town!! - First political activities }

{  Climbed in her toy basket all by herself  }

{  This slays me  }

{  <3 <3 <3  }

{  You do NOT want to get on our bad side...  }

{  Just kidding, we don't have a bad side... ;)  }

{  Good morning, Birthday Girl!  } 

{  The nose never stops...  }

{ 1 & 1/2 inches in 1 & 1/2 months  }

{  You can see our baby getting bigger and our carpet getting dirtier.  }

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#NormalizeNursing

I don't always post boob selfies (actually, never have before...), but when I do, it's because they have fed another human being for nearly a full year. I am proud of that and amazed at what the body is capable of. 1 year was my goal. It has been challenging and frustrating at times, but also incredibly special and so powerful.

I chose to breastfeed my baby for her health and mine, and for our bonding. I did it for all the women who want to breastfeed but can't, for the mommas who pump around the clock, and for the women who choose to feed their babies formula instead... because we all get to choose how we use our bodies and nobody can tell us we are right or wrong.

It is such a polarizing issue, going either direction depending on the crowd you're with...

A major point of contention is nursing in public.

I wish I could be one of the mommas who can whip their boobs out anywhere and not worry about the side-long stares, but that hasn't been my story. Even after nursing for a full year, I am not comfortable doing it in public. And that's a shame. Part of the problem is internal, part of it is societal, but it is a major pain, and not fair to a hungry baby.

I have nursed in public some, mostly using a light blanket as a cover, but these days Hazel will NOT stay under a cover. That girl does not want to miss a thing. And she's so easily distracted, she'll pop off suddenly, and "hello nipple, meet the world!" I'm a little self conscious of that!

Even when she was tiny and we could nurse discreetly, it was hard to get up the gumption to actually do it! I would normally find myself leaving a store or restaurant to nurse in the car instead. OR pushing off a feeding until we can get somewhere secluded, but once again, it's not fair to a hungry baby.

I do my best to share little parts of our nursing story and I'd like to do another post soon about our whole breastfeeding journey, hoping that when we share our stories, more people will become comfortable with mother's feeding their babies in public places. And more mother's will have the comfort I long for in the public world of nursing!

Nurse on, Mommas!!

Or, you know... feed your baby however you want!!

#Milk
It's what's for every meal.

5 more days to go...

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Roundup of our Baby Gear Favorites

Reflecting on the past year, I've been thinking about many things... SO MANY THINGS... but one of them is stuff. All the baby stuff we got and use with Hazel.

I thought it'd be fun to do a round-up of our favorite gear. Links are in the captions.

First I'll start out with the bigger things...

Car seat/Stroller
We bought the Graco Click Connect - Modes in the grey color scheme pictured. I LOVE that the car seat and stroller base can be put together so many ways, especially being able to just use the stroller frame and pumpkin seat for lightweight strolling. It's pretty easy to use (before we got it I'd go to Baby's R Us and take it all apart and put it together the different ways... I felt like I was in a commercial for it). It's lightweight so I can haul it in and out of the trunk easily. And now that we bought Hazel her next car seat we get to use the actual stroller insert and it is very versatile too with many recline and foot rest positions. Forward facing... parent facing... so many options!

My one complaint is that the car seat straps did not come with coverings and we have to be careful not to pinch Hazel's neck when tightening the straps. Even then, she gets red marks from them frequently.

Graco Click Connect Modes

High chair
We wanted simple, lightweight, and easy to clean and move. This checks every box! And the BEST price tag you can imagine for a highchair.

Ikea

Carrier
Ergo 360 - Let's hear it for baby wearing! It SAVED our sanity sometimes when she was a newborn. When nothing seemed to keep her happy, we could put her in the Ergo and she'd nap (as long as we were constantly moving). Also, putting your car seat in the cart while grocery shopping leaves no room for groceries, so we always wore her while grocery shopping!

We had the newborn insert  when she was small, which made her a cute little baby taco. Now that she is bigger she uses it without the insert and the 360 feature allows her to face inward or outward! She likes to see the world. I've used other carriers as well including wraps and ring slings... I like them for short periods, but the Ergo is the most comfortable if you will be wearing it a lot. The waist support helps take off a lot of the weight from your shoulders.

Ergo 360

Swaddles
In the first few weeks of hazel's life she didn't wear many clothes. Mostly, she was in her diaper wrapped up in muslin swaddle blankets. These blankets are the best!! The are large and super lightweight and I used them for everything! I swaddled her with them, I covered the car seat on walks with them to keep the sun out of her eyes, I used them as nursing covers, drool rags, you name it. Pretty sure if you had a nice patterned one, it'd make a nice scarf too!

Aden & Anais

When I pulled this little swaddle out to see the brand it almost made me weep, because I can't believe she ever fit in it. Hazel's was tan and she just looked like a little bean when she was in it. It's thin fabric that really snuggles them without being too much lie a straight jacket. This was probably our very favorite swaddle for sleeping in the early days. Also, love the double up/down zipper for nighttime diaper changes!

Summer Infant

We had this suit in pink. Even when Hazel was in the womb she always snuggled her hand up next to her cheek. She'd usually sneak it out o whatever swaddle she was in, so when we put her in this, it was easy for her to get that hand right where she liked it. We called this her squirrel suit since it was pretty goofy.

Love to Dream

Baby Monitor
DropCam which is now called a NestCam or something...
The nice thing about this camera versus other video monitors is that this is through the wifi, so you don't need another device to view it, it's linked right to our phones instead. AND if one of us is away from the house, we can still pull it up and see what's going on. There's a speaker that the person on the other end can use too. It's kinda creepy, but also awesome.
The down side is that someone somewhere within the Nest company (or potential hackers) have a lot of footage of us in our underwear...

Drop Cam / Nest Cam

Drying Rack
This baby is in CONSTANT use. Our bottles and a lot of Hazel's things ARE dishwasher safe, but tend to get filmy in there, and are on too frequent turn-around to make the dishwasher practical. This is great for all the little annoying breast pump parts that constantly need to be washed and dried. AND it's cute on the counter. There's even an all white one for the super minimalist, no color type of people.

Boon

Baby Gym

Most toys are kind of take it or leave it for us. She likes them, but she'd be just as happy with an empty water bottle or some other random thing. However, in those first few months, before she could really play with much she really enjoyed laying in her baby gym. We had a different one that was a hand-me-down, but there are tons of them available. 

Baby B. Wonders

Shoes
First off, why are baby shoes so darn expensive? I can buy shoes for myself from Payless for less than I can spend on good shoes for Hazel, but then again I'm a pretty big cheapskate.

For her first summer she never wore shoes or socks. Barefoot all the time!! But once the cold weather moved in she needed some foot coverings, and socks never stayed on her feet. Our friend and neighbor introduced us to these (which I've mentioned before). They are cozy and stay on well with snaps, and they're pretty cute.

Zutano

Now that she's walking, we got her some soft soled crib shoes. They are soft enough she can feel the ground to help her balance, but sturdy enough to wear outside (although the bottoms will get stained!) and they stay on very well (this is a big deal for baby shoes)! The only downside is that they are kindof ugly. I wanted some nice neutral ones, but had a hard time finding any so we went with the ones pictured below. Although, now that I was looking for a link to those I DID find some cuter ones and also some gold mocs similar to the ones we have from Old Navy. I might try some of this brand's sandals for this summer.

Robeez

EDIT - P.S. I didn't do any price shopping when grabbing these links... if you actually want to buy any of these I recommend shopping around. Some of the prices seemed higher than what we paid.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things, like this sippy cup, so maybe I'll do some more of these posts and include some of the other products that make our lives simpler as Hazel ages.

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