April in Review

Could I somehow slow the time down a little bit? It's beginning to settle in that Little Z is entering her last month of being a 1 year old...how?!?!?!?!?! I'm not ready. I need her to be a baby just a little longer. So, let me start off with some selfies that we took on the last night of April because she wanted some photos with her mama (she will literally say "cheese!").

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April hasn't been as crazy busy as last month, but we still did have a few eventful things happening in our lives. We greeted April with another travel; this time to Omaha, Nebraska. I will have to wait on sharing the "why" part for a little longer, but this was another trip we enjoyed and this time, more prepared. It amazes me just how much stuff a kid needs for a trip, but I felt much more prepared this time. Our previous trip was just less than two weeks before this one so our mind was fresh on what worked vs. not with a traveling kid. I promise to write a post about it soon as I know several of my friends have been thinking about traveling this summer.

Little Z became an experienced traveler this time around. She was handling the changes with much more ease, so the experience for us parents a little easier too.

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The highlight of this trip was the famous Omaha's Henry Drooly Zoo and Aquarium, which we had heard wonderful things about. Omaha Zoo is considered one of the best in the nation, and this zoo-loving mama was probably the most excited one in the family. We went on a Saturday so it was packed as we expected, but we were not disappointed by the experience. Going to the zoo with Little Z is fun as she is getting older; she is starting to check out animals more. But don't worry, she was still very busy trying to run around everywhere without holding hands - there may have been a few tantrums. She did end up falling asleep in the stroller toward the end of our time there, but it was just perfect.

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We had also planned to go to the Children's Museum but ended up not going due to Little Z completely passing out on me for 3 hours straight. The girl must have been tired! I also had an opportunity to connect with a fellow doctor's wife for lunch while visiting - I know social media gets a lot of crap for it sometimes, but I absolutely love the connection it builds.

There were plenty of park trips for her to burn her energy off (seriously, how do toddlers have so much energy?). Little Z had her first ice cream during this trip, which brought us a lot of smiles and laughter.

The second half of April was busy, not due to travels, but with work. It felt like both Z and I was working nonstop day and night; we were often working right after putting Zoe down for the night. On my end, I felt like I was doing an admission event every few days. Every time an event was coming up on my calendar, figuring out childcare became a big production because Z's nature of work was not reliable enough to naturally take over the parent duty, and we don't have any family members to help. Because these events are in the evening and past daycare hours, I usually had to resort to asking our former nanny or a friend to come by to watch the little one while I was running the event. Unfortunately, help is not always available to me so my last desperate attempt is usually playing Cocomelon, which is her obsession. The very last one we had was exactly that case - thankfully, Little Z knew the drill and was an absolute trooper.

On weekends, we try to find ways to burn off Little Z's energy. One of our favorite parks is Levy Park but the playground closed for a whole year due to the pandemic. Recently, it opened back up, and it was an absolute joy to watch her try new things.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/64c0a1_e7ddfc053dbe461a9be896f13aee6b26/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

She has also been engaging in a lot of pretend plays, where she bathes her "baby", changes diapers and etc. Her favorite weekend activities include playing playdoh with dada, painting, and helping me with basic chores like feeding the dogs twice a day.

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I suppose the last remaining item to write about is chopsticks! Little Z was introduced to training chopsticks a few days ago. The actual usage only lasted a few seconds, but she seemed quite interested in using it. Since we use chopsticks daily, I am hoping that she will observe us and show interest in modeling after us.

Well, that's it for April 2021! We do anticipate some crazy couple of months coming ahead so can't wait how that will all unfold!