One Word

Watching M grow and learn new things is fascinating.  The other day I was thinking to myself about how each year has been different, and I tried to sum up his development/growth in one word for each year of his life so far.  Here's what I came up with so far:

0-1: Attachment

1-2:Exploration

2-present:Discipline

For me, the first year was all about developing and nurturing the bond and connection between him and us, aka loving on him!  I think discipline and exploration go hand and hand somewhat.  Once he got comfortably mobile, that's when he really started to explore and he certainly still does.  Now that he is two and very verbal, we are working on setting the boundaries within which his 'exploration instinct' can flourish.  He is definitely not a bad kid, but he is starting to do some things to see our reaction (ex: purposely dumping his milk on his tray at meals, trying to climb up in the pantry!) but this is the stage where I am really seeing the importance in modeling/emphasizing proper behaviors, and consequences for misbehavior. I just say discipline for this year, because we didn't really have to deal with it before!

While I was organizing his toys, he was organizing my pantry...

I was curious to hear my husband's opinion on all this, so I asked him to sum up each year with M in one word too.  His three words were:

Sleep

Walk

Talk

As in, M spent a lot of time sleeping that first year (and learning to sleep well!), then walking, and now talking.  And truly, he is a little chatterbox now!  (Best phrase for today, so far, while picking up his baseball glove: "Mommy, let's go play with my basketball glove."  ha!)  I thought this was a fun little exercise to share our perspectives on his development, and one that I plan to think about each year.  

Can you sum up each year of your child's life in one year?  What about YOUR life?  (I'll have to think about this for me, too!)  Please share!