Cecily is pushing her little chair around the house and will now walk if you hold both of her hands! Walking!!! Noah was so excited for Daddy to come home to see it. We had a family breakfast with Grammy and Grandpa and Grandpa Bob and Cecily showed off her new skills. I couldn't have been more proud. And I was equally proud of Noah for cheering the loudest and giving her such big hugs for her amazing work.
After falling back on her eating Cecily is again back to taking tastes via mouth. Over the last few days she even signed that she wanted more! And speaking of signing... Cecily is using her signs more and more to communicate her needs. The other day instead of a tantrum when I tried to leave the playroom she signed Mommy play with me. :) Yes! Today she signed a few of the pictures in the book we were reading and we are rejoicing at every word.
And then there is Noah! He is always the little ham of the house but he's taken to dancing with a guitar to make Cecily giggle and it works. He is always down for physical comedy and Cecily finds him giggle-licious! Watching these two laugh and smile and enjoy each other is simply priceless! (We are also proud of Noah's latest monkey bar accomplishments...) He is our monkey and we love him for keeping us on our toes and reminding us not to take ourselves so seriously.
January has brought some wonderful things for Cecily's Closet, too. We've had more and more people reach out to us and share their stories with us and offer to help. We are overwhelmed. We are so grateful to all the amazing people we have met via email recently and we look forward to getting to know you better in 2012. We know that in order to keep Cecily's Closet at a steady state - and to grow - that we will have to learn to delegate better. I'm admittedly not very good at that but it is NOT because I'm a control freak. (Yes, I standby that statement). It is merely because I feel guilty when I ask others to do stuff and sometimes I'm unsure how to pass the baton on these projects where we seem to be involved in every aspect, angle, step etc. But... our goal for 2012 is to learn how to accept help and to delegate so we can help more families and ensure that our own little family remains priority #1. With the upcoming birth of Cason we want to have 2012 planned for Cecily's Closet so we can meet our objectives and not kill ourselves in the process.
We'll be putting our efforts into the 3 main areas of the charity:
Room Makeovers - trying to do at least 10 in 2012
Belly Bands - growing this operation and we're committed to keeping these bands FREE for families in San Diego thanks to our growing army of local sewers
Equipment Recycling - growing this operation and using a parent to parent connection to facilitate the equipment exchange
We will keep our Adopt-A-Family Program for the holidays but we will limit the amount of gently used toys and clothes that we accept in the non-holiday months because we feel that aspect of the charity is harder to scale and we want to focus on our core mission.
We are so grateful to Beverly for her recent delivery of belly bands! We are loving the new denim! We are grateful to Suzy and all of her contacts that provided great stuff over the holidays! We are grateful to Beach Bungalow Designs for putting us on their home page and for the recent referrals! Thank you Jeremy for the beautiful ottoman! We are grateful to the strangers who have reached out and asked how they can help and to those that have shared our story with their book clubs, bible groups, friends and co-workers. Cecily's Closet is a community of volunteers, Moms and Dads, friends and family that believe together we can make a difference in the life of a child. Isn't it amazing what we can do if we work together?
Thank you for making our dreams come true for Cecily's Closet.
Onwards and upwards!