Life As A 1-Year Old

It hasn't even been a month since Roy turned one, but I already feel like he's lightyears ahead of last month. This isn't an official 13-month post (will I even keep doing them now that the months are in the awkwardly-too-high-to-really-tell-how-old-he-is range? We shall see...), but here are some things about what it's like to be one. Also, I really feel like Roy just grew up overnight. Not like "it's gone so fast!" but literally like he learned how to do so many toddler things in a day....or a week at least!

• Your dance moves become super awesome, including swaying, head banging, stomping, and some erratic crazy dances.
• You think everything is a phone, including your bare hands and your sippy cups.
• You no longer use a bottle. Sad day for you (you cry several days in a row hoping mom will give in and give back the bottles) but it is the happiest day ever for mom to not do bottle dishes any longer!
• You think you are really strong and can carry around giant boxes, Tupperware, puzzles, books, and your toy riding car.
• You get super frustrated when you aren't strong enough to lift the biggest things, like the "What to Expect" book. You throw the book on the ground in anger until mom gives you some light sci-fi to "read" instead.
• You also get frustrated at other little things like: not being able to reach the deepest toy (computer mouse) hidden in your toy box. Also: trying to read your book in your crib late at night in the dark and not being able to see anything.
• You are obsessed with putting things in containers. A book in the trash can? Yep! The door stopper in your crib? Yep! Everything is a container and everything needs to be "put away".
• One of mom's favorites is that you can concentrate on things for a long time now. Like doing a puzzle or putting two blocks together - you won't take time to laugh at mom's jokes or be distracted. You just keep sitting there, concentrating away!
• Most of all, you know you are hilarious and you know everyone loves you.

I call this picture "everyone needs a haircut". But also, Roy is obsessed with coming to sit in our laps. He just walks right up, turns around, and plops down as close as he can get.

He is also super good at doing the puzzle. He can get most of the pieces if I put them close to their spots!

Picture with mom because they are few and far between!

You concentrate on reading books, and you love to do the animal sounds. Currently every animal (including the neighbor's dogs) says "mooo", but you're getting there!

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!