Memories

 I have been reading a lot lately, books for fun, parenting books, church materials etc.   One of the parenting books I am reading is called, The Playful Family by Shawn Ledington Fink.  I haven't finished it yet, but lets just say I love it.  The part I was reading today talked about living life and all the tiny, special, glittery moments that pass by with barely a blink.  And that if you don't take a moment to sit and think about these moments, these tiny memories, these wonderful life living seconds it is really easy to just gloss them over and forget about them.  She relates it to the movie "Up" when Mr. Frederickson realizes that even though his wife was a dreamer, it was their everyday life together that really mattered to her.   This scene hits home to many people because we realize that while we are so busy chasing those big "Rainbow" moments we often forget about the little everyday shimmery ones.  With Ayla being so small, she hasn't developed a strong memory yet.  So this hit home to me.  It is my job to record and keep these little shimmery memories so I can share them with her later, when she is older, and hopefully when she will appreciate them.  Here is a link to one of my favorite blogs!  This girl is an incredible writer and I loved this post as she talks about motherhood and how it is our responsibility to memorize our babies.

In the book "The Playful Family" it talks about having a memory jar. A place where you jot down the little memories.  She says,"memories are verbs, There are actions in memories. We have to do something, see something, hear something, or notice something for it to be a true memory. We have to be truly present and aware of what is happening to feel it fully. We have to notice the beauty or we may miss it. And then you will get to the end of your week-- or life and think you didn't do anything worthwhile."  BANG!!  I was hit on the head. I feel like this happens so much to me as a stay at home mom.  I often will talk with my mom in the evening and she will ask me what Ayla and I did that day and I respond, blah, just the same old regular day at home.  Where did all my shimmery memories go?  Did I forget them so quickly?  That is a little bit heart wrenching to realize, especially since I feel like all I want to do is memorize every second of Ayla at every stage of her life as it all seems to be flying by too quickly.  Already I will look back at pictures of her from when we first brought her home from the hospital and I think wow, look how tiny she was.  Was she really ever that small?

Geez, look at me, this post is already getting pretty lengthy and I haven't even started to write about what I wanted to write about.  The point of all this is I want to start recording the weeks shimmery moments on our blog.  Beginning with the past week.

Last week Ayla and I had a busy week, so there are lots of shimmery moments I want to remember.

~Monday was Ayla's actual birthday.  Both Chris and I got up with her and sang her Happy Birthday then we watched as she opened our birthday gift to her.  We got her a push walker with toys on the front. She hasn't actually used it as a walker yet, but she like to play with the toys on the front.
~ On one of our morning walks this week along Old Prospect Road, we saw a big mother Hen and 9 babies scurrying across the road, and that mother Hen was clucking quite loudly (maybe feeling slightly threatened by us being so close) as we stopped to watch them.  And Ayla really watched them, I wonder what she was thinking.

~ Wednesday we went to storytime at Camana Bay.  Storytime has grown so much that they have moved it from the bookstore to the theater.  So now all the mommies and babies sit in the theater and watch the books as they are projected on the big screen and listen as a lady reads them to us using a microphone.  This was Ayla's first time in a movie theater.  After each book we all sang songs.  Ayla was mostly interested in watching all the older kids as they ran all around and up and down the stairs.  After story time I changed Ayla into her swimsuit so she could go play in the fountain.  She loves the fountain.  We saw Nolan and Jane and there mom Ashley and talked with them as we all played in the fountain together.

~ Thursday Ayla and I went and visited Sister Workman who was just baptized the Friday prior. Ayla seemed a little nervous and very shy when we first arrived.  I talked with Sister Workman about the relief society, and shared some homemade heart shaped sugar cookies I brought, and by the end Ayla had warmed up to her and easily won over her heart.

~ Friday was a busy day.  It was our turn to host the Friday playgroup that Ayla and I are apart of.  We held it down at the pool and clubhouse where we had held her One Year Birthday party the weekend before.  It was very fun, Ayla loves to hold onto the edge of the pool and walk in the shallow end all along the side.  She has her sideways walk down really good.  After the playdate ended and all our friends went home we went to take dinner to a relief society sister who had just had an abdominal surgery.  Ayla was being very clingy and did not want anyone to hold her.  I think she was worried I was going to leave her there or something. But we had a nice visit.

~ Saturday Ayla had a friend over.  One of the woman I visit teach is a single mother.  She has a very busy month with her work and has to work on the weekends so we brought her little girl over to our house for a few hours to play.  It was fun to watch the two of them, they both just wanted to play with Zuri majority of the time.  I even have a few pictures.

 

~ Church was so good this week!  All three meetings were really awesome.  Ayla was really good except for when one of the filipino ladies wanted to hold her and took her out in the hall. She is usually fine and will let anyone hold her at church, but this time she got so upset.  I think she is going through a little bit of separation anxiety, the last two weeks she has not wanted anyway to take her away from her mom.   Sunday night Ayla had a hard time going to sleep.  Maybe all the tickles and laughter from Daddy right before bed.  She actually cuddled with me.  And Ayla never cuddles.  We curled up on the couch together while she drank from her bottle and watched Lullaby Baby Eisenstein on youtube.