03.25.24 Weekly Message

Hi mama,

Well, it finally happened. My baby turned 1, and I'm officially the mother of a toddler!

I know toddlers often get a bad rap, but I'm genuinely excited to enter Emi’s toddler era. Here are some things I'm looking forward to:

• More communication

• Walking while holding her little hand

• Seeing her dance by herself

• A big old hug

Every stage is beautiful, and I plan to savor everything, even the tantrums.

FITNESS: Looking for low-impact cardio activities; I've never been a runner. I admire runners so much, like how do you run so far, for so long? Wow. But yeah, not me. Long-distance walking? I could get into that.

FASHION: I’ve always been into fashion, and I was basically Emily in Paris for a year, but what's up with all these “aesthetics” and where do trends even come from?

EAT: Baking an eggless, sugar-free, dairy-free birthday cake for Emi was a daunting task. But after some tweaking, we got there. Here's the recipe.

I didn’t know Cameron Diaz was still with Benji Madden (remember this jam?), but they had a second child, so congrats! Maybe she’ll join this newsletter; dare to dream.

Also, I thought my favorite Hollywood couple was breaking up, but they're not. Yay!

And wishing the Princess of Wales a fast recovery.

MOVEMENT: Emi’s new thing is climbing up and down the couch. Thankfully, Papa has worked really hard to teach her to go down feet first, and it is paying off!

SENSORY: I just realized we never talk about smells, so I’ll be preparing a little smell activity for Emi this week. Still working out the details, but I’ll share what we ended up doing in next week’s email.

MUSIC: There’s been a lot of singing with abuelita, and I know it’s going to continue this week. Abuelita is quite the performer with big hits like “La linda manita”, “Pon, Pon, Pon”, and “Los pollitos dicen”.

LANGUAGE: I decided to do a little more research on flash cards before introducing them to Emi because I prefer a hands-on, sensory-rich approach to learning rather than rote memorization or drilling. However, I want to use pictures as a learning tool and I believe there is a way to do it. Here’s where I landed.

MINDFULNESS: Our evening meditations are usually quite energetic, so this week I wanted to try something new, and we’ll be doing morning meditations like this one.

NATURE: Scavenger Hunts were a huge thing in my university, so I’ve been looking forward to doing this with Emi. I put together this Nature Scavenger Hunt.

SOCIAL: This weekend, Emi’s social calendar was full of birthday activities, so I’m not sure how we’re going to top that. This weekend will be a long one over here, so we might just chill. Mama needs to recover from the birthday planning.