Wow. I can’t believe I have survived the 1st year. Yeah! Congrats to me! haha. I am not sure why we give the baby so many presents for the first year of life.. I think all of the love and adoration should be given to the mommas and pappas. Its tough making that transition to parenthood, figuring out your new roles, schedules, lack of sleep, organized meals, etc. So we are ecstatic that we made it.
And it hasn’t been all easy. But I am so grateful for the wonderful friends I have here in Mumbai who have been such wonderful lifelines. I couldn’t have done it without them for sure. And my online mom’s group has been amazing – doctors when i need them, mommies who have been there done that (recently!), inspiration to try new things, courage to do what i believe is best and not what others say i should do, and most of all, encouragement that i can do it all! And of course our families have been great – they are so far away, but being able to share all of Cian’s milestones over skype on an almost daily basis has been great as well. Thank goodness for Skype!!
And Cian.. what a first year for him! He has been on 22 flights, has been in 6 countries (including India), has been to the beach, has been to Indian’s holiest river, has been to two weddings, has been to Ireland twice and the US once. He’s had 4 international visitors to Mumbai. He is definitely an international baby! He has friends all over the world and here in Mumbai he has an international set of friends who he adores.
And now on his first birthday, he celebrated internationally too – we did our first video conference call with my mom and paul’s parents. We didn’t want anyone to miss seeing Cian’s first cake and candle, so this was our solution. it worked pretty well actually! And we managed to also video it – which will be uploaded on the video page shortly.
He’s a busy little bee at 1 years old. His current schedule is playgroup on Monday with about 15-20 kids ranging from birth to 4, Indian music class on Tue, soon to be swimming as well, western music class on wed, just a casual friends meetup on thur and gym class on friday followed by another play group with all the 2010-2011 babies in Bandra. Wheew. He’s a busy boy!
Our favorite memories of the year —
- all of baby led weaning (BLW). We all survived BLW and it seems to have been great for all of us. People are still shocked to see that Cian’s favorite foods are tofu, broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, etc. maybe he’s just not a fussy eater, or maybe exposing him to so many of these fresh veggies first was the best thing to do. Who knows, but we just hope that his good eating habits stick around!
- taking a 4.5 month old Cian on a rickshaw treasure hunt around Bandra
- Cian wearing traditional Indian clothes at Kevin & Tj’s wedding
- Going to the beach for the first time
- Going swimming
- watching him play with his best little friends Isla & Martha
- laughing – his new ‘trick’ that is just hilarious!