By the time my children turned 1 year old, I was finally starting to trust my own parenting judgment.  I wasn’t perfect; but I could diaper with one hand, balance a kid on my hip while doing the laundry and generally left the house wearing something other than pajamas.   

A couple weeks ago, I introduced the first of five installments of “A Mom’s Bucket List,”—a series of blogs describing the ‘mom moments’ that most of us will experience during the first 5 years of our child’s life. Here’s the next chapter of memorable rites of passage that we moms get to live through during our child’s second year.  How many of these have you experienced?

1.       Watch your child's first steps.

2.       Get projectile-barfed on.  Maybe even in your face. 

3.       Hear your child giggle at: your funny face, your singing, your silly voice.  Enjoy the fact that at age 1, she is still laughing with you, not at you.  (That’s for the teen years.)

4.       Realize her favorite toy is not the expensive gift you splurged on, but a used Gladware® container or a random mixing bowl.

5.       Revel in the transition to cow’s milk. Could be a little sad as you toss the pump, the formula cans or your breastfeeding bras.

6.       Hear his first words. Be certain his first murmurings are really him saying “Mama!  Mama!”

7.       Translate your kid’s babytalk for others because only you understand that when he says “pee-pee” he means “peas,” “booze” he means “boots” and you-know-what means “fork”.

8.       Agonize over some milestone that the books or other parents tell you your kid should be doing by now. In a year, you’ll realize the milestone is insignificant, but you still lose sleep over it.

9.       Laugh as you watch him discover his own belly button.

10.   Continuously pick up Cheerios® from the floor after your child flings them.

11.   Watch him discover that he can dance—while admitting that most of the time, he looks like a crazed man jumping around your living room.  (In my case, my husband sadly realized that at age 18 months, my son was already a better dancer than he.)

12.   Start to panic as your darling child is now starting to say “NO!” on a regular basis.

13.   Enjoy the novelty of teaching her gestures like handshakes or “fist bumps.”  Ask your friends to put their hand up to your baby so you can show off how cute she is when she gives them a “high-5!”

14.   Watch your child learn to run. Witness him fall flat on his face.  Cringe. Watch him recover and look up at you smiling, as if to say, "Again?!"

What other mommy milestones did you experience when your child was 1 year old?  I’d love to hear!  Leave your comment below!