The One Year Old

$1680.88

This is the amount of money we dropped on Stella in her first year. This includes every last dollar spent for diapers, sippy cups, formula, bike helmet, multiple car seats, two pack n' plays, furniture....a portable DVD player for the car (I NEVER thought I would buy that), etc, ETC. I'm not sure if this amount is greater or less than the average kid. If it seems like a small amount, I'd like to thank Craigslist and our family and friend hand me downs.

The most notable stat from my obsessive number crunching is that more than half the total amount came in the last three months alone, which means in the case of Stella, her age determines the amount we spend on her. UH-OH.

One Year In

Most days it seems normal, natural even, that I am carting her around and changing her diapers and chasing her around the house and rocking her to sleep.

But from time to time, in no certain pattern, she still catches me off guard. Those take-your-breath-away moments when I look at her and remember again that she is my girl and I am her Daddy. I AM HER DADDY. I sit back in a daze, shake my head in disbelief and feel a blast of gratitude and awe at this reality. SHE. IS. MY. DAUGHTER.

And her survival depends entirely on us. Which makes me wonder, how the hell did we figure all of this out? And how did she possibly manage to get to where she is now?

Sure, there were many phone calls with friends and MANY google searches to help us along the way, but I had no idea how much our instincts would matter more than books and advice. Especially Kari's. She seemed to always know what was wrong, what to do, when to stop, when to start, when to panic and when to relax. It always worked like clockwork when we would have a Stella problem...we'd search the web, gather the stories, trade suggestions, scratch our heads at what Stella needed (as opposed to what another four month old who hadn't pooped in a week needed) and feel hopeless and then, suddenly, Kari would go with her gut and all would be right.

Perhaps what still astonishes me more than anything is how much my emotions are intricately tied to her happiness. When her days are easy, when she is happy and healthy and pooping regularly and not teething, my days are as good as they have ever been in my whole life. And I literally mean this. When she has one of those blissful days, I feel in the clouds, as deliriously happy as any of the adventures I've experienced. And when she has a hard day, the clouds of the good day part and I come tumbling down, falling as low as I ever have. What is the most shocking is that these days could come one right after the other. I know this is probably true of most first time parents in the first year, but I still can't believe how hopelessly depressed I am after she has one of those fussy mornings followed by a lunch disaster where she refuses to eat, followed by a rash that keeps getting bigger and forces her to scream every time we change her, followed by a night of flexing her independent I'm-not-going-to-sleep-no-matter-what wails. And this is all after feeling as happy as ever the night before when she cuddled and kissed me and went straight to sleep.



It feels like ages ago that we were a family of two. The days when packing for a weekend trip to Big Bear Lake took a few minutes, when seeing two movies a week was normal, when dinner out lasted as long as we wanted it too. The days of sitting around dreaming of what our little Stella would look like. Those days do not seem like yesterday and this year, despite what we were told, did not go by quickly.

I can't wait for year two.

Stella's First Year In Photo Booth

Stella's evolution through Photo Booth...volume would help. :)




Happy 1st birthday kiddo...

Nonrequired Reading: 012: Shop Class As Soul Craft

The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on. Boasting is what a boy does, who has no real effect in the world. But craftsmanship must reckon with the infallible judgment of reality, where one’s failures or shortcomings cannot be interpreted away.

-- Matthew Crawford, Shop Class As Soulcraft

_________________________

While at times tedious and extremely heady, Crawford's work moved and challenged me to rethink "knowledge work" vs. "manual work" or white collar vs blue collar. He makes a strong case for manual labor, runs through it's history and weaves his own story as a motorcycle mechanic into the book. I wouldn't necessarily recommend the book, which I doubt I would have made it through if I wasn't listening to it in the car, but I would highly recommend his essay that preceded the book. You can check it out here and it's definitely worth thirty minutes of your time.

A Week Without Meat

Since finishing Eating Animals a few weeks ago, our meat intake has gone down drastically. Though I didn't know it, my infrequent meat questioning over the years had placed me at the precipice of vegetarianism and it seems Foer's book has pushed me over the edge.

I certainly didn't intend to become an almost vegetarian in 2010, but now when it comes to eating animals, I no longer care for it. The mental leap it now takes for me to eat meat simply trumps whatever wonderful taste it may provide. (Someday, it would be nice to have that sort of resolution when it comes to my Coke, Andes Mints and Ben and Jerry's intake.)

Last week we decided to go without meat entirely, which provided a new level of thought regarding our food (ESPECIALLY since I don't eat cheese either).

For breakfast, Stella and I had our usual feast of four hard boiled eggs and yoghurt. For lunch, I munched on rice, beans, avocado sandwiches, oranges and chips and salsa. Dinner was the tricky part, but we managed to score a few great ideas. One is my sister Jamie's AMAZING curried lentils, which we scarfed down over the course of a couple of days. Kari also managed to find a vegetarian Caribbean curry that was quite tasty, despite a what-the-hell recipe.

In the end, a meatless week felt like a healthy week. We primarily traded meat for fruits and beans, and the healthier we ate, the less junk food we consumed as well.


- For when we do eat chicken, I think I have found a nice alternative to the factory farmed raised poultry. It's not quite as good as knowing a local farmer, but it's close, especially for us California kids. It's called Mary's Chicken and it can be found at Whole Foods (at least the one in Pasadena). You can check out their website for the details and even watch a video from the farm. We have definitely gone with Mary a few times since going almost veg a few weeks ago.

Milestones and Then Some

In the same week our Element flipped to six digits, Stella rode in her bike seat for the first time. From wearing an uncomfortable helmet to zipping down Lake Avenue in cool morning temperatures, she seemed to handle the new experience like a pro. I knew the ride was going well when I turned around to see her feet crossed, her go to position when she's relaxed.







She seems older these days, just a few weeks before her first birthday. It's not just that she's climbing everything or playing hide and go seek or drinking whole milk or any other number of new things that seem to come in rapid succession. Her eyes seem different...the way she peers around corners or stares into us as if channeling a deeper level of understanding. She interacts with us differently. She gets her feelings hurt. Her personality is a whole lot of personality.

She's beginning to feel like a toddler.

DIY: Infant Kitchen

We hope to build her a more authentic wooden kitchen when she is bit older, but for now, this $5 cardboard box kitchen will suffice. :)




Materials:

- Cardboard box (free)
- Black matte board (free...we had leftovers)
- Tackle paper ($2)
- Coathanger turned into nobs ($1)
- Showerhead turned into faucet ($1)
- Bowl turned into sink ($1)