Grandma Visits Baby Roy

Hopefully she came to see the rest of us too. :) Roy loved having his Grandma in town. She read books to him, fed him so much food (we all ate REALLY well for a week!), played with him, and brought him so many presents.

We went swimming almost every day she was here, and baby Roy loves swimming. We also went shopping and got some cute new things for the house and for all of us! We sure miss Grandma, and can't wait for her to come back.

Mom, how did we not get a picture of all of us together??

 

Roy loves the new car Grandma got him for his birthday!

Roy at 1 Year

Roy is a year old!! It is crazy to think about, and yet feels exactly normal. He had a wonderful birthday...meaning he probably didn't even know it was any different. We served his favorite dinner (just kidding, he doesn't have a favorite so obviously it must be one of my favorites..) of fettuccine alfredo and breadsticks. And then he had some fishy cupcakes for dessert! I didn't plan to do anything too exciting, but we had plenty of fun.

I saw a poll on a baby website the other day and about 40% of people spent more than $500 on their baby's 1st birthday. WOW! I had fleeting desires to do something like that - even just balloons and streamers could have been cool, but then I remembered when Roy had a balloon for one day...and all he did was try to eat it. So we just kept it simple, but made some great memories.

Here are some things about Roy at one year:
-He keeps learning things and then unlearning them. One time he was obsessed with kisses - he would kiss me over and over and laugh. But he hasn't done it since! He also has said a few words (like "dad-dy") a few times, and then never again.

-He doesn't know any animal sounds or words, but knows a car goes 'vroom'. And he does it all the time! He has a few toy cars, and constantly goes 'vroOOooOOooOooOoOom' to his heart's content.

-He knows how to chase and be chased. His favorite game with Shenli is to be chased. He will run right to me (mom's base!) in hopes that dad will growl and stomp over to chase him and tickle him.

-Can climb up and down stairs. His little legs are so short that it's hard for him to go down especially, since it's a small leap of faith to reach the next stair. But he's a champ at going up! He likes to disappear while I'm in another room, and then I find him 3-4 stairs up just giggling, wanting me to chase him up.

-He can pull blocks apart and wants so badly to put them together, but he doesn't know how. But he loves pulling them apart!

-His favorite color is red (not really sure if they can have favorite colors at this age, but he always gravitates toward red things!). He also loves balls, reading books still, his puppy that he sleeps with, adult shoes, the pool, his stroller...and basically everything.

-He's still on the smallest end of the growth charts, but he eats and sleeps great as always! He is a joy to have every day. He learns so much, and I know this is just the tip of him really learning. We love him so much - happy birthday Roy!

Official 1-year pictures

Eating that birthday cupcake!

The birthday fishy cupcakes! Just how I dreamed them.

11-month pictures

Roy doesn't understand selfies (..and neither do I)

Crazy hair, brought to you by Roy getting food everywhere, every meal

Thoughts on Decision Fatigue, or: How I Plan to Become a Robot

As I've mentioned before, I absolutely love the idea of lists, goals, and self-assessment. So when I heard of the concept of decision fatigue, I became obsessed! Decision fatigue is basically the idea that you become more tired after making too many decisions, and then you make poor or irrational decisions because of it. Instances of this in my life are many, and include:

-Why I can't make myself do the dishes at night. Because I'm so tired (I'm definitely a morning person) and I can't force myself to make the right decision to do the dishes, so I make the easy (irrational) choice.
-Why I sometimes look at my meal plan for the week and decide I hate everything on it and that we should just eat out all week (or, alternatively, eat grilled cheese and pancakes the rest of the week). Making a new meal can be a hard decision to make/follow-through, whereas the decision to make pancakes (and the process of making them) is so ingrained in me that it's easy!

I love the idea of making most of my decisions super easy, and making myself happier in the process. I've been listening to the Gretchen Rubin podcasts lately and I'm sure I'll post on those eventually too. But first, here are my ideas to implement so I make fewer decisions. Also known as...how I plan to become a robot so I always make the right choice and don't hesitate! I love reading blog posts like this from other people, so I guess that's why I'm writing these down. And so I can look back on it later!

-Do my hair the same way every weekday. When I realized I should do this, it was a major lightbulb moment. I have never had a go-to hair style, and because of that, I don't really know how to do my hair well or what looks good on me. But I did start noticing that if my bangs aren't pinned back somehow, it drives me nuts all day. So I decided that every weekday I will wear my hair straight with bangs back somehow and that's it. That way, I can begin to perfect my regular hairstyle! I still branch out on the weekends when I have more time to get ready.

-Put snacks in tupperware in the fridge. Okay, I haven't implemented this yet, but I do plan to! I think I've always had this goal, but I've never had a side-by-side fridge until now, so I can finally see my food rather than bending down all the time. If I keep fruits and veggies in the fridge in tupperware, I hope that it will be a no-brainer decision to just eat them!

-Keep the house clean all day long. This obviously involves a bunch of mini-decisions but I think it will add up to far less decision making overall! I've started following Gretchen Rubin's "1-minute rule" where if a task takes less than a minute, you do it right away. For me, this means
*putting dishes in the sink right after we use them
*picking up Roy's toys and my own things whenever I leave a room
*.....maybe that's it! But in general, just picking up and wiping things down, and cleaning up little by little.
The reason this one is so important to me is that the messier my house gets, the more able I am to live with just a bit more mess, and the less motivation I have to clean up anything. So if there are dishes in the sink, then it doesn't matter if I leave a mess on the table, or don't sweep the floor, etc. Whereas if my house is clean except for dinner dishes, it's a no-brainer decision to do the last of the dinner dishes before bed to keep the house all clean!

I'm still working on all of these, and trying to implement even more automatic things to reduce my decision fatigue. But I can say already that these are working wonders!

Roy: 10 Months

A ten month old? I can't believe Roy will be a whole year old in just a couple of months. Roy has really started moving and "talking" more this month, and I love it! Here are some more notes:

-He got his two top teeth and now has four total. When he first got his top teeth, he would grind his teeth all the time. The sound drove us crazy! But now he's used to them and doesn't do it anymore.
-He chews his tongue. Apparently this is genetic, because I have always been a major tongue chewer. Who knew it began so young! He sticks his tongue out the front of his mouth and just chews away all the time.
-He loved it when we were packing up and moving our stuff out of the Orem apartment. He would just go from box to box and try to climb on them, move them around, everything. One time Shenli caught him on top of one box and trying to swing his leg over onto another box to ride it like a horse. So hilarious.
-Now that we're in Texas (and a neighborhood where I don't fear for my life when going for a walk...), we bought a stroller to take Roy around. He LOVES it. And not just being in it for walks. He loves sitting on the ground inside the house playing with the wheels of the stroller. He can move it around the family room and he'll play spinning those stroller wheels for such a long time.
-I am back to work full-time (I was at 30 hrs in Orem) now that Roy can be contained without access to the kitchen and family room all from my "office". So in the new house, Roy gets the whole upstairs to play around in without getting into too much trouble! But what that does mean is he gets to entertain himself even longer while I work. He has a toy basket that he plays around with most of the day - it's amazing to see him just go, get a toy out, and play with it all by himself.
-But my favorite part about him playing at work is when he plays with my office desk. Because the printer is now at his eye level and he's learned to turn it on and off! It's so hilarious - he found which button makes the noise by turning it on, and then he tries to make copies before turning it back off to do the process again. He seems so smart nowadays! I'm sure he's no smarter than any other baby, but it makes my heart so happy to see him do things like this.
-While this house may be better for him playing around at work, it also has more dangers for sure! Or rather, we have to be more vigilant. One of the first days we were here, I let Roy play in the pantry while I made dinner, thinking it was totally safe. Well, it didn't take long for him to reach up for the glass jars and make one fall on top of him! It was empty and he didn't get hurt at all, but I think it scared him pretty bad when it shattered. And it scared me too! So the pantry is off limits at least until I baby proof it! We've also had to baby proof the outlets and of course the stairs.
-He now eats much more food than ever before! At our last doctor's appt, they said Roy was slightly anemic, but nothing to worry about. And he's been dropping percentiles each visit (now in about the .6%....yep) but still nothing to worry about. But one day it hit me - I bet other kids eat a ton more food now than just milk, and that's how they get bigger! (Duh.....). Up until now, I'd still just been feeding Roy some of our dinner each day, so not very much. But then I got up the courage to buy real baby food, and set us a rigorous schedule. He eats three times a day, just when I eat, and he eats some cereal, baby food, water, and part of our meals too. The baby food has made all the difference, and I hope it helps him grow big! I feel terrible having basically starved him for this long, but I feel slightly more confident now as he starts weaning from formula soon and gets all his nutrients from real food!
-Ever since we got to this house, Roy has only done real crawling. No more army crawl! I am so glad too. And he's also started a new trick - standing up by himself. He pulls up on anything nearby (I tend to be a favorite pull-up toy..haha) and then lets go and stands for a second or so. Now he's worked up to maybe 10 seconds max at times! He doesn't seem to want to take any steps yet while standing, but he loves the actual standing part. Soon this boy will be walking by himself - I can't believe it.
-Just one last thing that has started happening the last few weeks. When I'm working, or anytime Roy plays upstairs, sometimes he'll just disappear and be gone a long time. I finally peeked in at him one day and he was....reading! Or looking at books rather. He has a big stack of them in his room (we need a bookcase...I'm thinking the wall book display things from ikea!) and he just pulls out various books and turns the pages. It's SO adorable. I've started giving him a book in bed for naps and he loves that too. Hopefully this boy turns into a book lover!!

That's it! Here are some pictures this month. We didn't take very many compared to previous months...I need to get back on that! Hopefully with summer we'll have more swimming pictures and things.