It should come as no surprise that someone who enjoys putting together cute outfits for herself so much that she started documenting them on a blog in grad school would also enjoy putting together cute outfits for her kiddo. When I was pregnant, I had little daydreams of dressing Sebastian up like the little kid models you see on Pinterest, and doing these cute little mommy + me outfit posts. Obviously that didn’t happen because, like most new moms, I barely had time to shower after Sebastian was born, let alone time to plan fun and elaborate outfit posts.

But then S got a little bit older and entered the “I DO IT” independence phase. This is a great milestone for him and crucial for boosting his development, self-esteem, and independence. And one of the things he has started to do is dress himself. First it started with him independently putting on the clothes I picked out for him and has slowly morphed into him picking out the clothes, too. While I sometimes feel a little disappointed about not always getting to put together cute outfits for him, I have learned a lot from my almost-4 year old about what it means to wear clothes and get dressed. And I’m appreciating a whole new word of cute!

Jammies and sneaks

Happy birthday to me!

It’s hard to believe I am in my mid-thirties.

It feels like just yesterday that I was learning to drive a car, studying for midterm exams, or even getting married! Yet here were are at the end of the most memorable year any of us have probably ever experienced, on my birthday, with a global pandemic raging around us, and everyone trying to find a “new normal” in life while simply surviving. Aside from all of that, though, this year has also been memorable for me in other ways: my baby turned three, we sold our first home and bought a new one, I quit my job with NO back-up plan because I was miserable, and I decided that I was tired of suffering imposter syndrome. So, I’m determined that this will be the year I gain my confidence back.

That last one is super scary for me, but also incredibly exciting! When I was younger, I truly felt like there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do and I was already ready to take on the world. Somewhere in my late twenties, however, I lost all that mojo and I’ve had a really hard time feeling like I was worthy of anything. But this year, my 36th year, I’m reclaiming my confidence. And to help me do that, I’m looking at all the life lessons I’ve learned up to this point. Some of these I’ve known and followed for a while but some of them took me a little longer to learn. It’s not that I hadn’t heard them before, but rather that I didn’t know that they applied to me, too.

So, here are 36 life lessons I’ve learned so far: