Emily is now back at work and Astrid has started daycare. It’s been a hard transition, but luckily we had a full month to ease into it with mostly half days at daycare. Astrid no longer cries when she’s dropped and (fingers crossed) has started napping there. We’re lucky to have a patient caregiver to look after Astrid during the day, although I’m sure it’s been hard on her listening to Astrid wail when she refuses to nap.

For me, the hardest part has been giving up our data collection. With Astrid at daycare, we decided it was no longer worth collecting sleep, feeding, and diaper statistics. Asking our caregiver to use cloth diapers and feed Astrid a vegan diet was enough of a stretch without also asking her to track the timing of her poops and naps. So after 10 months of beautiful data, that project has come to an end.

Astrid’s new love is climbing and standing. She’s so determined to master standing. She repeatedly climbs up something, lets go, and topples onto her bottom. It looks jarring even with her padded diaper, but she does it over and over. I admire her tenacity, but I was less impressed when she refused to sit in the bathtub, in her crib, and on the potty (aerial bombardments). Luckily that phase only lasted 2 weeks and she’s less fidgety now.

In the past week, she’s learned how to walk with a walker. She’s growing up so fast.

She’s a lot of fun to play with right now. She can spend longer playing independently and she’s more interactive when you play with her. Our favourite game is hide and go seek. I’ll go hide around a corner or behind the couch and say “where’s daddy?” and Astrid crawls around and lets out a big giggle when she finds me.

Her other favourite game involves opening drawers and cupboards and emptying their contents. Classic.

It’s fun to rediscover the world through a child’s eyes. You can see her processing new experiences all the time, like how the tupperware lid makes everything look purple or the sound the pot lid makes when it hits the ground.

Now that it’s truly summer in Vancouver, we’ve been enjoying more time outside. Astrid loves playing in the garden and eating dirt. We’ve taken her on a few bike rides and hikes. Nothing too adventurous yet, just some local hikes and a few a seawall bike rides.

We picked up a used bike carrier and after some repair work to ensure the wheels don’t fall off, we’re ready for more bike adventures.

Astrid is making a lot of noises and babbling. Her vocabulary includes “baba”, “booo”, “mama”, “lala”, and “pbwbbbb”. No “dada” yet and we’re not sure if “mama” means anything other than “feed me”.

We’re grateful Astrid has been healthy. Her skin has been better, with hardly any eczema on her arms or legs and only a small patch on her cheek that comes and goes.

More photos.