It's been a long time since I've blogged about little but mighty Luna Mae and so I'm going to try to recall the things that have happened as time begins to speed by! Luna Mae continues to be one happy eater. She loves pretty much anything you give her. We have days where we don't eat as much but vegetables, starches, meats, soups and you name it, she usually loves it. Her favorite cheese is definitely parmesan which she pronounces (parm ja mon). She loves to lick her fingers and pick up every little cheese crumb left on her tray, and she does it with great, meticulous care. Our favorite game is peek-a-boo hide and seek, and we love the book "The Yellow Bus." 

Luna continues to be ridiculously high energy! Honestly, not unlike all the constant kicking I felt during pregnancy. She does not walk, but she sprints, and you really have to watch her at the playground now because she is FAST. One blink, and she is quite literally gone! She loves to go on the slide by herself now and if she can climb it, she will attempt to climb it on her own. I feel like we have some rock climbing genes that I don't know where she got them from! She now has lost all of her little dinner rolls on her arms and legs and she is a tiny little petite thing. But don't let that little fierce body fool you because Luna Mae has QUITE the big personality. She loves to squeal, laugh and love with force and she also can become angry and have BIG emotions (the opposite way.) We call her our little sour patch kid because that is currently the phase we are in at the moment. She does have simply beautiful manners though, and we love her for this. We have learned to sing for patience, sing when we are mad, sing when we are joyful and really create a song to any other task that requires a careful transition. Luna loves to sing, and she loves when you use your sing song voice to give directions as well. We are really working on recognizing our big feelings and also that we cannot always do what we want to do ( a hard lesson to learn I know ;). Self talk has also been a big help, and as her language becomes clearer, you can often hear her trying to work through an emotion now on her own. 

At the current moment, two naps per day plus a steady schedule plus endless activities, songs and books are what make a happy Luna. We had an interesting time over break watching her navigate changes (definitely not our strong suite) and feel like we finally have our calm baby back (which took at least a week after coming back from a time change.)  As I remind myself, a tiny change is a HUGE change for a baby and we are gradually becoming better with changes through talking and growing. Leaving "Mama" is also a difficult concept but we are learning with tiny baby steps that Mama indeed will return!

Luna is a SWEET little cuddle baby. As much as she loves to sprint, I truly believe that if I placed her tiny body in the baby carrier and we walked around for four hours, she would be just as content. She loves being close and being bundled up (still.) In fact, when she wakes up from nap now (not our favorite hour of the day), we wrap her up like a baby taco, give her a snack and read some books and that seems to do the trick. A gradual wakeup is key for a happy Luna. 

Luna continues to love being outside more than inside. She could independently play in the sand or in playdough for hours. She loves to cut, to pretend to fix things and mix the playdough. Anything with her hands that she can create, she absolutely does. We still love drawing, we love painting and recently, we really enjoy making Valentine's Day cards for quite literally every person we know. When Luna is in the zone, she is FULLY in the zone. She is a perfectionist, but she has learned to say "help please" which has been preventing frustration. And so has her fairy friends. Anytime we have even a remote meltdown now we turn to our "fairy friends" to calm out emotions and 9/10 times it de-escalates the frustration pretty immedetely. Afterall, what isn't magical about fairies? At 20 months, her language completely exploded, and I would say we are now talking about just about everything. She can sing the ABC's, twinkle twinkle, baa baa black sheep, down by the bay and a few more. She has a really beautiful voice, and I would say her pitch is pretty darn good too!

We finally learned our colors (mostly) and we can count to ten (sometimes skipping three and four). We love to make dinner, bake, decorate and play with joy. Luna Mae is a little blessing who knows how to LOVE hard to THINK hard to PLAY hard and FALL hard, and we cannot wait to see all the joyful mischief she brings in the years ahead. One thing for sure, little Luna Mae knows who she is, and I cannot ask for anything more. 

Luna loves Eva and she ADORES cousin Gio. Both of which she talks about constantly if they are not around. Every day is apparently Gio's birthday and we sing to him as if he is with us in California. Luna is also very intruiged about this idea of her getting a new little cousin. Baby Melody is asked about pretty much every day. It's adorable, and she will be overjoyed when we all get to meet her officially. We love Auntie Jenny and Auntie Tessie and Uncle Nicky and both grandparents of course. 

One of these days we will get our two naps down to one nap. Right now, we seem to need the two naps and our 8:00 PM-5:00 AM wakeup remains the same! Cheers to starting every morning with an early bird!

WE love you, Luna! We are proud of how much you have grown the past five months and how much you continue to navigate and try to understand at your age. You want to know how EVERYTHING works around you, and we have no doubt you will figure it out with gumption. Just remember-you have plenty of time to do so ;)

Love, 

Mama and Baba