blessed.

Soluna waited until the day after her baptism to start making bigger moves. I like to think that she had to be blessed before feeling ready to move onto the next major world-altering stage. Who could blame her? She's been getting into everything and after picking her up and seeing a bunch of hair, dust and unidentifiable particles on her butt, I realized I need to be better about keeping our wood floors clean.

I am starting to relax so much more as a mama, but not completely. I talked about how I'm not a germ-a-phobe and now I easing up on my original food plans. I am still not a "whatever goes" kinda person and I do hope Soluna and the whole family eats healthier. But, I am more willing to experiment with food options for her hoping that she gets some more Filipino and Mexican food tastes before she turns one. But still a big "no" to junk food and fried food.

It kind of annoyed me though that while I was holding her, her Abuelo felt the need to quickly shove sweets in her mouth so we had no chance to protest. And, I might not have minded so much, but the grandparents feel like they have to "sneak" things to her like she's being deprived.

My mom is constantly frowning at Soluna as I feed her vegetables and says "eeewww... yucky." And, even though Soluna is usually pretty happy eating avocados, my mom insists that she doesn't like it and that I should mix it with milk AND SUGAR. What the heck? When I didn't want to give her fries, she was like, "THAT'S WHAT YOU ATE AS A KID. McDonads and french fries and sweets."... I WAS A FAT KID WHO TOOK LIKE 11 MINUTES TO RUN THE MILE!!! I hope they weren't feeding me McDonald's before I turned 1... I kinda hope Soluna has a healthier start than I did. Seriously, I had hella cup-o-noodles, fried chicken, fried fish, and chicken nugget happy meals.

We also returned 3 boxes of bottles a few weeks ago. Soluna skipped the bottle stage. She's been drinking water from a cup or glass since she was about 6 months or maybe even before then. After I would drink something she would just make a gesture to have me put the glass to her mouth. We've had some spills, but she's pretty good at it.

So besides crawling, eating and drinking... she is also starting to clap more, use her hands so much better, say "mama", "dada" and "papa,"...

Changes... changes...

dear blog,

I haven't written because I've been picking-up the pace. I've juggled work, school, home-life and community stuff since I was in college. Tried to keep my calendar full. Moved from one spot to the other every year. But, after having Soluna I knew I needed to slow down. To take a breath. To find myself again, and define myself. And after the rest, I came to a point where what I really needed was movement and activity to figure things out, to heal, to shape who I am as a mama.

So now, I'm ... taking care of Soluna, in a mamas group (sometimes 2), visiting family, working part-time, learning to cook better, cleaning up more around the house (decluttering), re-connecting with friends, studying to be a doula and planning for Soluna's baptism. On the periphery, I'm wondering about my next steps, my next career moves, my next educational moves, and my attempts to re-connect with community (who is my community now?). It seems like just the right time to make some major moves. I mean, I already took the big one: quit my cushy city job.

Soluna has been making moves of her own. She is an expert sitter, scooting unexpectedly in every direction, but not quite intentionally. I am anxious for her to full out crawl and reminding myself that babies do things at their own pace. She is SO there: on her hands and knees, lunging forward, but not quite moving. We've coaxed her with food, toys, and cheers. She'll probably do it when we're not looking. She has also learned, from cousin Cheo, the art of squealing. Nice. And she has become a clapper, and on some occasions a waver. I can't forget to mention that she has one chomper in sight, her top front right tooth.

Is the year going by fast or slow? I can't tell.

Peace.

Mama Aya

my little baby is growing up!

Part of why I started this blog was to document some of the amazing changes in Soluna during her first few months. In between my rants and raves, I don't always have the space to just share and appreciate my beautiful little baby... To catch us up, here are her top 5 newest accomplishments (She's very advanced. hehe):

#1: SOLUNA CAN SIT! At around 6 months, Soluna started sitting up on her own. Prior to that, we probably didn't sit her up enough for her to get the chance to do this. Because once we started to do this more often she perfected sitting up in a weekends time.

#2: SOLUNA CAN TALK! She has been cooing for quite some time, probably as early as 2 months or so. She would throw in a consonant now and then, but it was only until earlier this month when she really really really started babbling. Prior to this I noticed she started moving her lips in a talking fashion... and then it just clicked... "Dahabaladaklahe!" ... "Mahdalakah!" Awesome! I swear, I thought I heard her say "Mama!" She's starting to talk non-stop!

#3: SOLUNA CAN FEED HERSELF! Alright, Soluna grabs the spoons while I am feeding her and feeds herself! She's very "skilled" at eating. I wonder who she gets this from.

#4: SOLUNA CAN LUNGE AND SCOOT: She's almost mobile! Check out her blog to see her actually scoot on her booty. But now, she's also lunging forward while sitting to grab things and lands on her belly. She kicks her legs, but no official crawl yet... almost.

#5: SOLUNA IS SMILEY! We were starting to worry but the past month or two Soluna is smiling and laughing more and more. I think she was waiting for mama and papi to up their comic routines.