Yifan is 1 year old. What a significant milestone for him.

I admit just as most parents, the first month was so exciting, and everything is new to us, and we noticed every single details of him, and our lives changed a lot because of the arrival of this little boy. In the next year, the life went on, and we started to get to normal family life, and didn’t spend every single day as holiday as we did at the very beginning. I am shocked by the fact that before I really noticed, Yifan is already one year old, and the image of a little infant for him has gone for ever. He is now a handsome, more independent and one year boy!

I think that is the reason why people design birthday – for everyone to take the time to celebrate the milestone, and take serious time to review the past year spent with a person, and to realize how important he/she is to you. So let me take the time to do reflection about the year.

Month 1

Time of the first month, of cause, as any new father, was flying. Whenever I go, I just feel that I have put a label called “I am a new father” on my head. I just excited to tell everyone I meet that I just had a wonderful baby, and even want to show them pictures.

Month 2

The second month, Yifan has his first hair cut by professional baby hairdresser, and he look fat! He is, in his second month. As the first month, he is still small, and sleep all the time and wake up just to eat, or when we take him bath. He kept sleeping in the first four months.

Month 3

Yifan in his third month grows even fatter than the second month. When Wendy and I look back at the photos of his 3rd month, we realized that Yifan is not as handsome as we firmly believed at that time. :-) How blind parents are. However, we both firmly believe that in current Yifan is much more lovely, and is getting more and more cute – which is absolutely true at any time in the eyes of parents. So don’t talk about object with parents. :-)

Month 4

In the 4th month, Yifan’s neck is still soft, and we have to carry him with hands. At some point, I envy other parents, because their children have been old enough to use their necks to support heads. However, quickly when Yifan can also do that, I realized for the first time, that Yifan is already independent a lot, and is no longer an infant.

Month 5

Yifan spent the time when he started to be able to use his neck to support his head, and be able to move in winter. In all pictures, he wears a lot. That obviously restricted his movement a lot, and he didn’t crawl very often in winters. That also explains why he crawls as fast as rabbit when he is 1 year old – he wears much less that at that time.

Month 6

This month, Yifan is able to sit firmly, and really LOVE to take bath.

Month 7

In month 7, toys started to mean a lot to Yifan. He starts to build his relationship with the toys he has. He love to grasp something, and keep it in his hand for a lot time. Once his grandpa gave him a small yellow plastic circle, and he grasped it in his hand from the early morning, went out twice that day, slept twice during the day, and still have it at night when he went to bed.

Month 8

At the 8th month, Yifan started to show interest to walk. Although he cannot walk, he enjoys to stand up with our help, and love to push a bench forward to support him to walk. He crawls a lot also. The best thing is, he had his first two teeth, although the rest still didn’t come out when he is 1 year old.

Month 9

In his 9th month, I really regard him as a boy instead of a infant. He looks like a boy – high and heavy. He starts to wear cloths designed for boys, and we went to Hangzhou. It is the first city he every visited other than Shanghai.

Month 10

Yifan gets back to Wendy’s home town, Nanyang, with us. There, he grows up a lot because he saw many things he never saw on the street, and there are many people in the family that Wendy and I even cannot get a chance to take him in our arms.

Month 11

Back from Nanyang, Yifan is just like graduated from a sport school. He changed to another person, and started to crawl everywhere in the home. The whole home started to be small for him. He is just like Columbus, and visited every corner of every room.

Month 12

In his 12th month, Yifan has his own independent thinking, and shows it very clearly. I started to lose the power to get him do something, no matter it is eating, or pissing, or playing. He has his own schedule, that we HAVE TO respect. Otherwise, he will fight physically, or cry if he lose. He starts to play games with us. His favorite (also mine) is, I build a small house somewhere with wood, and when he found out, he will crawl across the whole room fast, and destroy it. Then I move to another very far location, and he will find out and destroy it. We will play this game almost everyday in the 2 weeks at the month end.

The Second Year

In Yifan’s second year, I will try to spend more time with him since he starts to know clearly that he loves to be with his father – I am not guessing. I am very sure. I want to make sure to spend one hour with Yifan every day when I am in Shanghai, and bring him outside to see the world. And of cause, I will record the happy and sweet time we had together on this blog from time to time. I hope I am a good father.