THIS MOMENT

This holiday season has been so amazing with Jack. It’s so fun watching him explore and experience so many new things. Currently, he loves our Nativity scene. It used to be my parents and they said I always loved playing with it when I was little, too! I’m so excited for Christmas morning to watch him open all his presents!

nytimes.comOUR "MOMMY" PROBLEM 

Overall, I really loved reading this. It’s a helpful reminder after perusing Pinterest for far too long that life is not going to picture perfect.

I 100% agree with the first part of this opinion piece, where the author talks about cringing at being called “Mommy” by someone other than her children. But, my small issues comes with the second part. I do want to throw themed birthday parties, I want to craft, I want to feed Jack as naturally as possible. The piece talks about how there is too much pressure on Moms, but these types of comments actually make me feel guilty for wanting to do some of those things.

My major take away from this piece is that I need to do what I feel is right as a person. I’m a mom, yes, but a person first. 

No wonder so many of us have stopped listening to all those people trying to tell us to surrender, embrace our inner housewife, have it all, accept less than “it all,” be more French, be less attached, be more attached, lean in, lean out. Today’s absurdly conflicting notions of motherhood play far better as comedy. No matter what the script says, we don’t have to perform such a farcical, unrealistic role. We can rip the S off our chests. We’re still the same underneath it all.

MILK & COOKIES: JACK'S 1ST BIRTHDAY

I can’t believe my baby boy is no longer an infant. He’s a full-fledged toddler now. To celebrate this huge milestone, we threw him a fun 1st birthday party with all of our friends and family (or as many as we could fit into our house)! 

I love throwing parties, but I sometimes put way too much effort into little details and end up missing the actual fun of the night. So for this party, I tried to stop myself from going too crazy and let this be more laid-back, but with a few fun details. 

I think choosing a theme makes party planning so much easier. I chose Milk & Cookies as our theme and based all of the details around that. Seemed easy enough, and actually it was! We had a fun cookie contest between our guests and some of them got really competitive! Plus, it was nice that baking was checked off my list! We got store bought cupcakes and garnished them with mini cookies ourselves to save some money. We also bought lunch instead of making it. I served lunch meat and sandwich salad sliders. It was easy, and I really loved that I didn’t turn the oven on the whole day! My mom made pulled pork sliders in the crock pot and that was a huge hit!

I kept the decorations simple, as well. My colors were black, white and red. I threw in some pattern as well, with polka dots and stripes. My favorite decoration was a photo collage in the shape of a “1”. I really hope to keep this up each year. I did it for the Ginger’s 25th birthday and for me it’s fun to choose the photos and make sure the guests are sprinkled throughout it, along with the birthday boy.

We really had such a blast with everyone. I think Jack truly enjoyed seeing so many people and getting so much attention. He loved opening his presents, and he received so many beautiful and thoughtful gifts. 

And then there was the cake! It took a little while for him to realize that he could really get into it. He’s usually a very neat eater and loves to feed himself, so he didn’t seem to understand how to make a mess. But he learned. Hahah, it was so cute! To make it even funnier, my Papap kept trying to clean Jack off with a napkin! He kept looking at me like, “Come on, he’s a mess” and I couldn’t get him to understand that was the whole point! 

I’m so thankful for this sweet boy. He has made my life infinitely better. I look back on this past year with so much joy. I am so happy that I get to watch this little boy grow up! 

30 BEFORE 30: #16

I had every intention of keeping up with this blog as a journal for Jack’s first year and for my first year as a mom…but as with most of my journals, that hasn’t happened. So now for some back-tracking. 

I’m making progress on my 30 Before 30 list, and this summer crossed one more thing off of it! I put my feet in the ocean with my baby. So here’s a little recap of my summer trips to the beach with Jack. 

Because of antiquated and unfair policies on paternity leave, the Ginger had to use a week of vacation when Jack was born, so that meant he couldn’t attend my family’s traditional trip (well it used to be a tradition, this was our first time going in about 10 years) to Rehobeth Beach, Delaware. We didn’t want him to miss Jack’s first trip to the beach so we took a weekend trip to the Jersey Shore for our first Cole Family vacation!

For a short weekend, we packed a lot into the trip. We spent a day at the beach and the Boardwalk, ate lots of seafood and a New Jersey staple, Taylor Ham, and caught up with a dear friend from college. Jack wasn’t totally into the beach, especially the sand, but he did seem to enjoy the water. That wasn’t a huge surprise since baths are his favorite thing in the world!

Traveling to the beach for summer vacation and playing in the ocean was a huge part of my childhood, and I’m thrilled to have started this for Jack. I hope we are able to go every year and enjoy fun traditions with him. 

A few weeks later, just Jack and I traveled to Rehobeth Beach, DE with my parents and sister. We had such a fun time reminiscing about our childhood trips there with my grandparents. It was kind of surreal being there as an adult. It all felt so different, and yet the same. I definitely remember the hotel we always stayed at, with the pool directly on the boardwalk, but I totally forgot the boardwalk itself. I kept mixing it up with other places we vacationed. But I will never forget some of the moments we shared…jumping in the waves with my mom and going out too deep then laughing about it, getting stung by jellyfish and then begging my dad or Hope to NOT pee on me, eating so many crab legs that I was the only one still left at the table, except for my dad patiently waiting for me to enjoy every last morsel of delicious crab meat!

As per usual with my family, we ended up bickering about some nonsense, but in the end still we enjoyed our time together at the beach. But maybe next time we won’t all share a room! 

P.S. Now that I’ve finished writing this, I remembered that I did write a post for Hope’s blog about the Jersey Shore and she did a post about Rehobeth. So here they are for more detail for my future self looking back on these trips and wondering what else I did!