Robert at 1

What a year! Robert is 1! I must confess that I'm not feeling the slightest bit nostalgic. I like where we are right now and I look forward to what's coming. Robert is a funny little man, and a neat kid to follow. I've enjoyed watching him waddling around, exploring the house, testing boundaries, and suddenly taking an interest in structured communication.

I'm using this blog post to document Robert as the kind of kid he is right now. This second. Unfortunately, my experience as his mother is entirely inextricable from my experience as Alice's mother, but I will do my darndest to describe Robert without comparison to any other sibling or child in my experience :)

Fine motor play:
This kid is drawn to non-toys that he can manipulate with his hands. The other day, I let him hold our digital thermometer for a while. He spent several minutes pulling it out of its plastic case and putting...it...back...in. I couldn't believe it. He was literally holding the very top of the thermometer and directing the 3 mm thermometer tip into the case opening which is only 1 cm wide. He laughed out loud every time he got it in, then he hopped off my lap to go show Daddy. Similar non-toys that grab his attention: pushing pencils through holes in paper, pulling straws in and out of small openings, using a spoon to scoop at Cheerios in a bowl, and deftly picking foam stickers off of Alice's preschool art projects one at a time. He doesn't usually play with cars and trucks like this, but I thought he was so cute in his Sunday duds:

 

Daddy adoration:
Perhaps the most amusing display of Robert's affection for his daddy happened several weeks ago in church. It was our first Sunday sitting solo in the pews while Bobby sat up with the bishopric. Robert was fine until suddenly he saw Bobby way up there. The kid squealed and smiled and tried to scramble over the pew to get to him. He could hardly be contained, lunging and squirming and giggling the first 10 minutes of church. He gave up on my lap and tried to crawl away under the pews. 

Physical Frustration:
Robert doesn't take bad news very well. He's not even 12 months old and he's already thrown himself on the floor several times to have a good fit. If he thinks you put him down a little roughly, or brushed by him too quickly, or served him the incorrect food item, he'll be sure to let you know. And once he's been offended, it takes a couple minutes for him to compose himself. It's almost a pre-programmed length. Whether the offending situation is remedied or not, he still kicks and screams and pushes people away for a minute or two. He's blinded by his rage, and then suddenly it's over. He comes to terms with his disappointment and moves on.

Tender feelings:
We were playing at a friend's house the other day when a 2-year-old got defensive about her toy. Robert moved in for a closer look (probably to attempt a swipe) and the girl reached out to push him. She pushed his chest a couple times, barely jostling his girth (Robert outweighs this 2-year-old, by the way). He looked at her, blinked a bit, then took two steps towards me before bursting into tears and running full speed ahead. I can't tell if it was the pushing or the denial of the toy that offended him more. It was clearly not a physical sort of pain.

Noise making:
He doesn't like sudden noises, and he's even wary of new sounds in his environment, but Robert is clearly a noisemaker. He'll pick up an object, usually a long one, and hit it on anything around him. If he finds a noise he likes, he grunts, looks up with his toothy grin, and makes that noise again and again and again. Here he is running the popcorn popper toy into a stuffed dog that shrieks, "Blue ear!"

Textile Exploration:
If there's a curtain, a hanging blanket, or any kind of fabric barrier within his reach, he crawls through it head first with glee. He gets a real kick out of it, too, with lots of grins, giggles, and peek-a-boos. He has a favorite blanket that he wraps himself in to go to sleep. Lately, he's been taking it out of his crib to play with. He may have inherited a propensity to carry that blankie around until it's stinky, gray, and loved to shreds. Sorry, little mister:

Susan and her blankie (age 2)

Susan and her blankie (age 4)

Bedtime Peace:
This boy is a dream to put to bed: pop in the pacifier, lay him down, and he just rolls onto his side and nestles into his blankie. Sometimes he falls asleep right away and sometimes he lays there quietly snuggling for several minutes before drifting off. He's been like this a long time, even as a teeny baby, and I had nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing. I was determined to let him cry it out at a young age after my experience with putting she-who-must-not-be-named-in-this-blog-post to bed as a baby. We let him cry it out a couple times, and then it wasn't a problem anymore. The boy knows when he's tired and he knows what makes him feel better. Sometimes he'll even close his eyes as I'm laying him in the crib...like one of those creepy dolls with weighted eyelids. ("Awake, dead, awake, dead...")

Put. Me. To. Bed.

Face time:
In your face, face to face, facing your face, it's all good to little Roberto. His preferred love language is definitely physical touch, as long as it involves someone's face. Life got a lot sweeter when I finally figured that one out. He likes to wrap his fingers around my nose.

Culinary Variety:
He's a picky eater. He needs a lot of variety. You can't serve him Cheerios two meals in a row. You can't serve him anything twice in a row, even though likes the food item and will eat it happily the next day. He refuses it, brushing it off his tray, even if he's starving! What a funny kid craving new and different flavors. I like cooking for him.

Social Skills:
This kid likes people. Babies and kids, mostly. He sees a child and he's drawn to that corner of the room.  He's sociable and generally friendly, though sometimes shy. He's a gracious host at home...if you can overlook his tendency to flail and hit things that he's really excited about, including peers. We're working on that. I promise.