Oh how things have changed at the Dris’ residence. The days are much shorter and the nights feel much longer. Moreover, I’m pretty sure we are driving our neighbours crazy with our *amazing* voices singing Nayla-fied renditions of ‘All Star’ by Smash Mouth and ‘O’Canada’ (Romel’s favourites) and ‘Girls Like You’ by Maroon 5 (my favourite). We can’t believe it’s already been a month with our baby girl! Here are a few tidbits + highlights in the life of parenthood thus far.

Behind the Name: As you may have read on my Instagram, her name is inspired by the important women who have significantly influenced our lives – our mothers and grandmothers. We wanted to pay tribute to them for giving us life and for raising + supporting us. In Tagalog, mom = na’nay’ and grandma = lo’la’, and hence, we came up with ‘Nayla’. Additionally, a variation in spelling of the name means ‘success’, which seemed fitting as Romel and I feel that this baby is thus far the greatest ‘success’ in our lives. Our hope is that we can raise our daughter to be a strong woman, who demonstrates endless love, generosity, and kindness like the women before us. Her middle name ‘Rylee’ comes from the neighbourhood I grew up in, ‘Riley Park’. You may have caught on now that I have a thing for naming things after meaningful places, e.g. Simcoe was the name of the street of our home in Toronto. As usual, Romel wanted to name our baby, whether a boy or girl, “Romifer”… Um, no way.

A Day in the Life: With the crazy hot weather we’ve been having, we’ve been spending most days hiding at home with the AC on. I think Romel’s been trying to sneak in a few games here and there, as well as has been watching history documentaries or ‘Friday Night Lights’. However, when we’re all up in the morning or when it’s a bit cooler in the evening, we’ve been going out on family walks around the neighbourhood. We’re definitely new to the stroller driving scene and still need a bit of practice maneuvering around small spaces but we’re slowly getting a hang of things. Nayla quickly falls asleep as soon as we leave the house!

Sunday Bests: Remember our Sunday Bests series?! I sort of miss our cross-coordinating days… If we were still doing fashion posts, they would now likely consist of plain t-shirts and sweatpants. As for Nayla, her wardrobe mainly consists of newborn onesies right now. How come everything baby-sized is so cute?! I love this heart printed onesie with ruffled sleeves that her grandma got for her. However, Romel tends to put her in anything Marvel or Nike. I think he’s still coming to terms that we have a daughter… By the looks of it, Nayla doesn’t seem to like wearing those Spiderman onesies!

Jordans

<3 <3 <3

Favourite Moments: I can’t get over the cute little faces she makes! She’s also starting to imitate facial expressions like in the photo below with her sticking out her tongue. As she’s become a bit more alert throughout the day, we’ve also begun to play + read to her. I still can’t get over how I’m now reading books to Nayla that my mom read to me when I was a baby! Some of our favourites are “Love You Forever” (which is now a 30 year old copy), “The Hungry Caterpillar” (thank you Tita Cecilia for the book!), and “The ABCs of the Web”  (Romel would, obviously).

Tough Times: These past weeks have definitely not been easy. I think the biggest challenge for myself has been learning to breastfeed and all of the challenges associated with it, especially anxieties regarding whether baby is getting enough. For Romel, his biggest challenge has been waking up in the wee hours of the morning. When he gets into a deep sleep, it is almost impossible to wake him up – and when he does, he is really, I mean REALLY, out of it. On one occasion, I asked him to change Nayla’s diaper and he started unwrapping our duvet like it was a nappy, and another time, he wouldn’t stop talking in his sleep about a mysterious boat to take us to this magical island… I have no idea.

Despite the challenges we’ve faced this past month, I would not have it any other way. It has been a huge learning experience for Romel + I in regards to parenthood, our relationship, and ourselves – and we know that this is just the beginning. We are excited to see what other adventures lie in the next month… purple crying? cluster feeding? colic? more sleepless nights? … We’re ready for ya.

We love you baby girl!