Andy’s mom found a new park she has been wanting to take Belén to.  It is relatively close to our house and nestled right into the Boise foothills.

Andy was trying to give me some time to finish up our blog posts from our Europe because you know the only thing better than reading about someone’s vacation is reading about it three-and-a-half months later…

Anyway, Grammy, Andy and the girls braved the below-freezing temperatures for a mini-adventure at the new park.

Eloise swung in a swing for the first time.

And Belén was able to show Eloise how high she will one day be able to swing.

Even though the cold didn’t bother our fearless toddler, the rest of the crew was frozen within 20 minutes so they headed back to Grammy’s for hot chocolate.

Here’s to hoping the adventures get warmer soon.  I am so over winter…especially the cold kind without any snow.

I know that Eloise is a second child based on my behavior today.

We were picking the kids up from daycare and I was in the baby room when her teacher told me that they had been aggressively putting Aquafor on the red, dry skin she has all over her body.  I thanked her and mentioned that I just don’t understand why it doesn’t go away.  Is it eczema, dry skin, what?

She mentioned that she has had babies in the past whose similar eczema was due to an allergic reaction to something in the child’s diet.

My mind immediately started racing.  This did start about the time we got serious about solids.  We DID NOT follow the introduce a new food every three day philosophy like you are supposed to.  I mean, it’s not like I went from rice cereal one day to a chef salad the next but it was a barrage of different fruits and vegetables depending on what seemed most interesting to Andy and I as we were choosing her food.

I internally chastised myself for not figuring out that it could be an allergy on my own because, duh, it’s so obvious.   I really just thought all of the babies must have dry skin this time of year.  Not so much, I guess.

The rest of the evening since the conversation has been spent plotting about if we need to do an elimination diet or start from scratch with rice cereal to see if the dry patches go away.  Any suggestions?  I have also read online that it may not have anything to do with food.  Who knows!?

Then I I thought back to how I reacted to Belén’s health problems which in all fairness had the potential to be a lot more serious.  I remember the feeling of extreme nervous to the point where I was looking for a bathroom every time I had a conversation with a medical professional.  I am pretty sure that eczema or whatever it is Eloise has would have affected me almost as dramatically as Belén’s HSP did.  With the second child, things just seem ever so slightly less scary.  It is amazing how resilient experience can make you.

I remember myself as a very ambitious, mostly fearless 20-something who didn’t understand why people with more experience were more valuable than young, ambitious 20-something-year-olds.  Now, from my 30-something vantage point, where I feel like I know less and less everyday even though my experience portfolio continues to expand exponentially, I can honestly say I have begun to value experience.  Whether it is a type of project at work or an ailment of my baby, having been through it once or twice before makes a whole heck of a lot of difference!  The trenches have indentations from where the ladder was  before so this time around, all I have to do is lay it down again and hope for the best.

It now makes perfect sense why those parents with ten kids  let the second child deliver the ninth because with that much experience, they feel pretty confident everything is going to be okay.  Now, I am definitely not to that level of confidence with our children, but it was major progress that I didn’t have to run to the bathroom after my conversation with her teacher today.

It’s scary stuff when you realize something is wrong with your child.  But with the second child, thank goodness, the fear seems a little more reasonable…

Am I the only one who was not quite ready for 2012 to start?  In my desire for proper closure, I had hoped to have everything neat and tidy coming into the new year and well, it just didn’t happen.  I have lots of good excuses as to why 2011 thrust me into a new year, unprepared, why I needed it to linger on a bit longer, but none of that matters now.  We are a little over a week into 2012.  The champagne bottles are long since recycled and my resolutions have been logged.  I still haven’t finished up those lingering items from last year…the vacation blog posts from October, the organized spice rack, the book I hoped to conclude so I could start reading from my new nook, etc.  None of them are a big deal, but I crave the closure.

If I were willing to relive last week’s craziness, I would be tempted to declare a “do over” on the whole New Years thing so I could do it right, be prepared.  Instead, I am giving myself a break to not be on top of it all, to still be pondering what I want to accomplish in 2012.

As I read through others’ resolutions and ponder my own mental state of mind in this wonderfully hectic life I have created, I cannot quiet this voice in the back of my head telling me that setting goals for myself is not what I need right now.  I have a accomplished a lot in my life and there is much more I intend to do, but at this point, the to do list only seems to get in my way of focusing on what really needs to be accomplished.

Just as I was exploring these thoughts in the back of my mind, I reacquainted myself with Leo Babauta’s fabulous Zen Habits blog and found this post about “How to Have the Best Year of Your Life Without Setting a Single Goal.”  Instead of goals, guest writer Jeff Goins coaches us to get up early, over commit, talk to strangers and practice generosity.  He did this in 2011 and accomplished far more than did in previous years with long resolutions lists.

I don’t know about you but this sounds a lot more fun than a to do list (especially if you remove the getting up early piece.)

His approach quashes a portion of the voice in my head telling me I need to do something differently but there is another piece that needs to be addressed.  The I shoulds…

I should throw a kid’s birthday party that is cool enough to be featured on Oh De Doh.

I should be pitching more story ideas to magazines.

I should be selling enough jewelry to promote to Star Stylist.

I should be ahead of the game at work and have my Inbox cleared every night.

I should be taking my girls on more excursions.

I should be learning to sew.

I should work more.

I should work less.

I should be finding more time to read.

I should be running more frequently.

I should make some of the presents I give this year.

I should grow my blog readership.

I should spend an hour of focused time a day with Andy.

I should save more money.

I should clean my house every day.

I should get through my google reader more often.

I should get my photos organized.

I should remove myself from mailing lists to cut down on my email.

I should figure out what I would need to do to write a book.

I should make Eloise’s baby food instead of buying it.

I should ensure both Belén and I eat all four food groups at every meal. 

I think you get the picture.  It’s enough to make any person crazy.

I saw this quote via twitter and pinterest on Saturday which addresses the final piece of the thoughts that were eating at me:

I slowly but surely came to the realization that I am ruled by I shoulds with a bit of Keeping Up with the Jones’s (or mommy bloggers) on top of a foundation of goals and yet my true nature is a driven, wanderer.  My heart feels warm when I think of Jeff Goin’s suggestion to get up early, over commit, talk to strangers and practice generosity and then dims when I look at my list of I shoulds and to dos.

I have been on this earth long enough to know what needs to get done on a daily basis.  I don’t need structured goals to keep me motivated.

All of this is to say that while I still hope to do the things I outlined in my simple list of 2012 Resolutions, my real intention for this year is to rid myself of goals, to dos and any guilt associated with I shoulds.

The I shoulds cannot go away completely because they are the winds adjusting the sail to the direction I want to ultimately go.  I simply want to avoid having them dictate my perception of if I am doing a good job or not.  I no longer want to feel guilt because I have not pursued an I should whether it’s going to church or going for a run, packing a healthy lunch or pitching a magazine article on packing a healthy lunch.

More than likely, we are all doing the best we can and if we are not, we already know it.  Rather that craft lofty goals and to do lists to address the areas where we are falling short, I challenge you, myself, all of us to stop what we are doing and address the problem by adjusting our priorities until they are back in check.  For my money, I bet listening to that inner voice and taking action with the information it is telling us will take us a lot further towards being the people we want to be in 2012 than a list of resolutions.

My Dearest Eloise,

New Years Day not only welcomed in a new year, but it also marked eight months since the day you joined us.  If there is any one word I would use to describe you at this age (actually at all ages so far) it is DELIGHT!  You are a true delight.  Your daycare teachers tell us this.  Our friends tell us this.  Your grandparents and aunties tell us this.  It is true, you are a delight!  You are a truly happy spirit with an absolutely infectious smile.

While you are joyous, if something makes you mad, you let us know.  Even though I don’t want to get ahead of myself, I am already envisioning this happy young woman who knows what she wants and won’t let anybody walk on her.

At this moment you are the queen rolling.  We can put you down in one corner of the room and turn our backs for ten seconds and you will be on the other side of the room high-centered on a piece of furniture with paper or some other off-limits item in your mouth, smiling and drooling.  You are days away from crawling and we get a kick out of watching you an all fours, rocking back and forth, almost sure of what needs to happen next but not yet able to get the arms and legs moving in a coordinated motion.  You are smart though.  You will figure it out soon.

You love attention and are less content being left in a room by yourself than your sister was.  We think this is a second child thing.  You adore your sister and will stop anything you are doing (including breastfeeding) to watch what she is doing.  We need to figure out how to get Belén’s “Watch Me Mommy!” stage and your fascination with her in synch at 7am when your father and I would like to sleep in.

I am also secretly thrilled with the fact you are a mama’s girl at the moment and revel in the smile you give me when I enter the room (and sometimes cry when I leave the room.)  The greatest thing ever is when you hold onto my finger as you are nursing right before bed.  For this reason alone, every challenge associated with breastfeeding is worth it.

Some of my favorite things you do right now is to grab my face and hair (but, yes it does hurt) as if you just can’t get enough of me unless my eyeball is a millimeter from yours.  Your loud baby breathing directly in my ear is another favorite.  I think you are going to be a bouncer likes your sister as when you have joy to show, your smile quickly overflows into spontaneous bouncing.

Your baby thighs are complete with delicious rolls which nearly make me want to delay your crawling to preserve them.  You have become a big fan of puffs and pureed solid food and your two teeth are about to be joined by four more that will help you in your pursuit of solid foods.  Other than a lingering cold and some dry patches on your fairly sensitive skin that are no match for some Aquafor, you are a healthy little girl.

Music seems to speak to you in a powerful way.  You can be zonked out in a near milk coma until I whisper a song.  Your eyes light up and you often start bouncing.

Eloise, you are smart, beautiful, and amazing!  Eight months is such a fun age!  As the months pass by, our love and appreciation for you grows in ways we wouldn’t have thought possible. Life with you just gets better and better.

We love you!

Mommy (& Daddy)

Before we moved to Shanghai, I had anxiety about moving because I was nervous I would be claustrophobic around so many people.  I think I was actually more anxious about the prospect of having anxiety but that is a story for another day.

After we moved, I knew I had conquered my anxiety when we were in a subway car packed wall to wall with people at rush hour in a tunnel under the Huang Pu river.  I could literally stand on one leg even as the subway was slowing down and speeding up and not fall over with all of the supporting bodies around me.

Now I look back on our time in Shanghai and miss walking past so many people on the street.  The streets of Boise are quite lonely in comparison.

Andy took this video of a street in Hong Kong when he was there a couple of weeks ago.  This was on a busy shopping street but not during a special sporting event or concert (unless you count Christmas shopping an event.)

I think my anxiety was justified.

I bet now you will think twice when you are at Costco this weekend getting ready to complain about the crowds.