as i sit down to write atlas’s belated “one-year baby update” i realize that my baby isn’t such a baby anymore.
don’t get me wrong, he will always be MY BABY! but atlas is now one year + one month old & i just see him more as a little toddler boy than a baby. i haven’t fully come to terms with it. i shed tears every day out of happiness that he is healthy & growing, but also because he is growing and i can’t stop time. being a mom seems like the biggest contradiction ever, i swear. i guess he really hasn’t been a baby, baby for months now in general, but looking back at the blog updates that i tried to do consistently every quarter (3-month update, 6-month update, 10-month update), he’s just changed and developed so much that it truly shows you how fast time goes by! he’s obviously still so, so small and “baby” in so many ways, he’s still so dependent yet wants to be more independent. i can tell he wants to walk & talk and it’s simply amazing to witness him take in EVERYTHING at this age. he understands when we speak to him & has “tricks” like clapping his hands, shaking his head “no, no no”, taking a few steps on his own, dancing, “kissy” & throwing the ball for his dogs. he’s into sharing and giggles when we do stupid shit, i’ll do anything for that smile and laugh! he is simply our world and we love it.
here are his first steps
& here’s a peek into our schedule lately:
7:00 am:
dek wakes both me & atlas up around 7. i get up, make the bed, get dressed, wash my face, etc. & meet them in the living room. atlas takes an 8oz. bottle of whole milk in the morning (we don’t give him formula anymore) when he wakes up which dek gives him first thing while he changes him. he has to leave around 7:30 for work so atlas & i make it a daily routine to wave bye as he leaves.
9:00 am:
after we play, snack, hang out, run errands, etc. for a few hours, atlas usually starts to get tired. i know it’s time for his nap when he seems restless, unhappy to play and overall uninterested in anything. i will take him into his room & hold him until he falls asleep to his “bedtime playlist” and it’s one of my favorite times of the day.
i will hold him for as long as it takes him to fall asleep, usually just a few minutes. even after i can feel his body relax & the pacifier sucking stop, i just take a moment to soak him up and hold him close. i’m so thankful for this time with him!
i love kissing his perfect, little lips!
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
atlas takes SUCH good morning naps! they will last anywhere from 2-4 hours and i live for them right now. he wakes up in great spirits & ready to eat & have fun!
at this time i get him out of his crib & bring him into the living room for lunch. i’ll usually make us some sort of “protein” and since we try to buy less meat from the grocery store, i will bake gardein crispy tenders or meatless meatballs. sometimes we’ll have pasta with tomato sauce or pesto, pancakes with peanut butter, crackers, puffs, fruit, veggies, etc. and there are days where i’ll just whip up oatmeal cereal mixed with yogurt and a puree of some sort which he loves. he has also learned to drink from a straw, which is awesome!
pretty much anything goes, this boy loves food!
after i clean him & the kitchen up, change his diaper and get myself together we like to get out of the house for a little bit. we will take a walk to the park, make a target run, meet dek for lunch, check out a play place, meet up with friends, etc. anything just to get out for an hour or so!
we use his new, “big boy” car seat which we recently got since he outgrew the infant one. this is the one we chose!
discovering things at the park
shopping at ikea
walking around northpark mall
target run & never done
sharing an apple
climbing on slides
playing around at walmart
his new favorite thing is to ring the doorbell anytime we get home because it lights up & makes a sound, so he always points to it & gets SO excited – it’s the little things in life!
3:30 – 4:00 pm
around this time atlas starts to get tired again so we do the same routine as before & he will usually snooze for another few hours until dek gets home from work at 5:30.
5:30 pm
dad is home & he is ALL atlas wants! dek will usually feed atlas dinner (same type of foods as lunch) while i make US dinner. i try to meal plan as much as i can in advance so i know what i’m doing when 5:30 rolls around.
he has four teeth- 2 on top, 2 on bottom!
i’m not kidding when i say dek is all atlas wants when he walks through the door from work. he only wants to be held by him, he cries & crawls to him when he puts him down and seriously JUST wants to be in his arms….as do i, but i try to give him space- ha!
dek has resorted to wearing him again, he only does it for like 10-15 minutes at a time but atlas just chills on him & walks around with him – it’s so cute!
sometimes we go out to eat instead of cooking at home & atlas loves people-watching from a high chair with veggies straws in both hands
after a long day of playing, eating, exploring, crawling, etc. atlas gets his evening bath!
we have officially given atlas the guest bathroom as his own! when we originally moved into this house 3+ years ago we didn’t really think about having a baby & we put in a glass panel to modernize that bathroom because we both don’t really like shower curtains. well it worked for a while & dek was using the guest bathroom as “his” so i could use the one in our room as “mine” (because the “master bathroom” is smaller than the guest one). but atlas has outgrown the kitchen sink as his tub (we were using this one in the sink to bathe him) and needed his own space. it made the most sense for us to take down the glass panel (because it would be hard to bathe him in the tub with it) and re-put up a shower curtain and leave his bath toys, soap, towels, etc. in there & have dek move back to our bathroom. so! some shifting had to happen around here…but all for the better!
guest bathroom transformation:
he sits in the tub like a big boy while we use a hand-held wand to bathe him & he really enjoys it! he tries to stand up sometimes so i ordered these to help with slipping.
& sometimes even with all of the love, the good food, the cuddles and kisses he’s still our little grumpy baby boy!
thanks for reading!
