Incredibly, my last digital perm lasted over a year but I finally went and redid it.  I'm a digi perm girl for life now.  I'm never going back yall!

Oliver turned 21 months and every day he seems more like a boy and less like a baby to me.  It makes me feel so proud and while I miss him as a baby, more and more I feel hesitant to want to start the whole process all over with another baby.  Right now Stinky and I have such a great balance in the way we take care of Oliver, I can't imagine turning our world upside down with another child.  For one thing, I sleep 8+ hours a night now - after over a year of barely sleeping more than 3 hours at a time!

My friends and family seem to think I'm a bit crazy with the way I grill Oliver to learn.  We only do as much as he wants and he seems to love learning new things so we keep going.  In the past month, he has learned all the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 1-10 and the shapes square, circle and triangle.  Everywhere he goes, he points out letters, numbers and shapes that he sees.  His vocabulary is also way beyond count now and he says most nouns in both English and Chinese.  He does this on his own so for instance if he picks up a rock, he'll say Rock and then Sak Tou (Cantonese) on his own.  His Mandarin however, takes a far seat beyond Cantonese.  He understands when we speak Mandarin to him but he usually answers in Cantonese.

In a typical day, I usually ask him to go through all the letters in his alphabet poster before I leave for work, then during the day the nanny or my mom asks him to recite letters from his alphabet train toy or from books and then during his bath, Stinky or I ask him to recite his foam bath letters.  We also go through his first words and animal books a few times a day.  And he also watches a lot of Sesame Street and Phonics youtube videos.  Damn, I guess this does sound like a lot of learning.  Hopefully he continues in this pace.

And lastly the thing I am most proud of - Oliver is poop potty trained!  He always tells us when he needs to poop, even when we are outside and not at home.  Yesterday we were at Ikea and he told us he needed to poop and then ran into one of the model bathrooms.  Haha, we had to get him to the real bathroom stat!  Pee is another story though.  If we ask him if he needs to pee, he usually says yes but isn't great about telling us beforehand.  Hopefully that will work out soon as well.  

That's it for now - here's my little boy!

The first year was the longest and most brutal but time has really flown by since Oliver turned one.  He's gone from walking and talking to running and yelling.  He's even spoon feeding himself now!  My little man is so grown up.

People also comment that he is such a happy baby and he's always shrieking in laughter on the playground, especially on the swings or just out in the open.  He favorite activity is dancing and he is just one big ham.  Can't imagine loving another baby as much as I love him so there are no immediate plans for no. 2 any time soon.  Just enjoying our one for now!

At least twice a week I think about how much I'm going to regret not blogging about Oliver's development!  I'm actually much better with posting his milestones along with pics/vids on facebook than blogging about them.  So if you know my full name and wanna be in the know, friend me and I will invite you into my world of Oliver ha!  Just for some sake of record keeping, here are some random notes:

Walking
10 months: standing, pull to stand, cruising
11 months: first steps
1year, 2 weeks: full out walking
1 year, 1 month: practically running

Talking
man when did he start talking?  i don't even reallly know.  nor do i really know what his first word was because this kid has been a chatterbox as early as 3 months?  so when did his babbles become purposeful?  i really couldn't tell you but his current list of words, in no particular order, are:

baba, mama, mum-mum (food), ball, bubble, book, stink, gai gai (chicken), gao sup (9, 10), shi gua (watermelon), bye bye, tek (kick), bird, up, sar tao (comb hair), da-do (thank you).   ok i can't remember them all right now but he speaks a mixture of english, cantonese and mandarin.

and his absolute favorite word for months and months now is: UH OH!  if the dude drops something, wants something, can't reach something, hides something, finds something, sees something - you get the drill.  it's UH OH all the time at our house.

Commands
here are some of the commands he will follow when verbally prompted:
-flip pages of a book
-wave good bye
-comb his hair and other people's hair
-hold phone and other objects to his ear and say hi
-head butt
-kiss (only books and toys)
-raise his hands in the air and say up 
-kick things
-open and close doors
-turn on and off light switch
-hit/bang
-pull his shirt up off his head (once i have rolled it up around his forehead)

-make motions for washing hands

Food and Drink

we slowly transitioned his day (breast milk) bottles to cows milk without incident and i stopped pumping after he turned one but am still nursing him for the morning and night feeds.  With the exception of two random days, he has not bitten me (a common trend past 10 months i've heard) so i have no immediate plans to stop breastfeeding yet. 

little man still eats like it's his job so in addition to two bottles of milk, he eats 3 full meals and 2 snacks.  sometimes he gets distracted and you have to play him videos on the ipad or give him random things to play with (ie. throw off the highchair) but overall he's a good eater.  a typical day looks like this:

6am: morning feed
6:30am: wake up and diaper change
6:45-7am: book time (he has to flip through the pages of at least 10 books while you speed read to him)
8:30am: fruit and yogurt (he can eat an entire banana by himself or half a papaya!)
9:30-11:00am: nap
11am: 6.5 oz milk
12:30pm: snack of mum-mums, fiddlesticks, puffs and yogurt melts in varying amounts and combinations
1:30pm: whole-wheat waffles or pancakes or mini quiches or mini muffins with shredded roasted chicken or vegetable cubes
2-3pm: nap
4pm: 5.5 oz milk
5pm: another round of snacks
6pm: rice or risotto made with chicken/beef/vegetable stock with chicken or beef and vegetables cubes (at least two kinds)
7:30pm: bath
7:50: night feed
8pm: asleep

Sleep
Don't cry for me xanga but the kid JUST started sleeping through the night this month.  Ok, maybe you should cry for me.  He still randomly cries out and paces his crib waiting for me to come but usually goes back down within a few minutes.  Needless to say, I am very, very tired.

Play
Overall, he is one super active and curious kid who can turn anything into a toy/game.  He is very attentive and often picks things up just by watching us do it once or twice.  He amazes us everyday.  He is funny, stubborn, confident and adventurous.  And he loves to dance!

p.s. how do i get my lists to be single spaced??? 

yesterday was Oliver's birthday.  pictures from his big bonanza party to come.  for now, here is the 20x30 poster our friend made for the party.

we had our guests number the pictures in order from youngest to oldest and the winner only got 7 right!  i admit that even i flubbed some of them haha.