WARNING: Baby Bragging Below

When Helaina was born, and frankly for the first 8 or 9 months, I truly thought she was a challenging baby.  In hindsight, I'm now fairly certain it was me learning how to become a new parent that was the huge challenge.  Don't get me wrong, it was extremely tough when she would only nap for 20 minutes at a time.  She was pretty strong willed about not napping or missing out on anything.  I'm not sure where she gets that from?  That can wear on anyone after 12 and 13 hours day after day by yourself.  When we transitioned to one nap, she finally would sleep (and still does) for 2-3 hours and get her (and mine) much needed rest.  My other hurdle was breast feeding but that was neither of our faults.  We just needed the care and concern of the right individuals to get through it, which we eventually found.

Looking back though, those have been my only huge challenges thus far.  We are incredibly blessed with her disposition.  Although it took a ton of patience and finesse in the beginning to get her to go to sleep, she has always been a great night sleeper.  Right from the get go, she started to give us huge night stretches that were the envy of my friends.  She still sleeps great from about 7:30PM - 7:00AM.

Her eating habits have been nothing less than stellar.  She has no problem eating leafy green veggies and other things that other kids won't touch.  It is not an exaggeration to say that she at times,  eats more than I do.  She could most resemble a gold fish in that I am certain if we kept feeding her, she would eat until she popped.  In the rare occasions when she was not feeling well enough to eat, I got a small glance into the problems that mom's of picky eater's have.  My heart goes out to them.  I'll would much rather have take a second mortgage out on the house to feed my daughter any day.

Always big smiles when she's eating

She has always been very flexible and adaptable.  For example, in our trips to "mainland," she has adjusted much quicker to the gruelling time change and the travel itself better than we had.  I pray that it the case with our upcoming travel next week.

As of late, she has blown the doors off any expectations that I have of a 1.5 year old.  Chis and I foolishly took her to a Sushi restaurant that sat us in a very small room with 5 other tables.  You could hear EVERY ONE'S conversations.  She ate off the menu and was close to a show pony with her behavior.  2 tables and a handful of waitress' came by to commend us on her behavior.  I smiled and said AMEN to the Lord to myself -- 'cause that can't be my parenting that would have dictated the situation.

Last week, I was helping my friend Rochelle get ready for a big party.  In my infinite wisdom, and because I don't have a ton of options, I took our toddler daughter to our big Costco visit.  She was an angel in the cart, for almost 2 1/2 hours!!!  We had to do some entertaining and of course some eating to keep her occupied but she seriously impressed me.

People of Walmart Costco

We have an amazing child.  She is sweet, happy, and open to learning among a whole list of other things that we think are great about her.  I'm sure this is a 'parent sydrome' to think your child is great but if it is, it is also my right to blog about it.  I really pray that she keeps shining and most importantly that I can add 'good teacher/example' to her accolades as she does have a sibling on the way.