Birthday Girl

Abby's first birthday was October 29th. Since her birthday fell on a Wednesday, we waited until the weekend to have her birthday party. Nevertheless, Abby's actual birthday was pretty full of activities.

Jonathan had arranged to be off so he could spend the whole day with our birthday girl. Abby was probably a little confused about why we both showed up in her room as soon as she woke up, acting even more excited and goofy than normal. The rest of the morning was taken up with making sure Abby was well-fed, well-rested, and well-groomed for our early afternoon appointment for family & one-year-old portraits in a neighboring town. After a couple of hitches (we had to backtrack about 3 miles home to retrieve a forgotten baby dress & the photographer's digital camera malfunctioned on the third shot), the pictures were taken with a film camera and turned out well. Maybe I'll get a few of the portraits posted later on.

On the way back home, we stopped by Nana Diana's house, where she snapped these cute shots.




After an afternoon nap, we were off to a birthday dinner for (great-grandma) Nana with whom Abby shares a birthday. We brought a helium balloon to the restaurant to keep Abby occupied and it worked great.

A solemn Abby keeps a tight grip on her balloon's ribbon.


Birthday girls. Abby was hungry and uncooperative at this point.


Reading with Cousin Jaime.


Cousin A.J. is always ready with a smile for the camera.


Cousin Makenna blows a kiss. (With the delay on my camera, a three-year-old subject, and my questionable photography skills, this shot is almost miraculous.)


Given my sweet tooth and my sentimental nature, I could not let Abby's official birthday pass without letting her celebrate with a cake. I didn't take the cake to the restaurant because I wanted her to have her first taste of cake and be captured on video at home since her party would occur elsewhere on Saturday. Because we've always had birthday suppers in my family, I had planned for her to have her cake right after her supper at 5 pm. I hadn't anticipated such a full day of activities, so ultimately we began our private birthday celebration when we arrived home about 7 pm.

Can you tell where the balloon is?



For purposes of cleanliness, we decided to open presents first. She was getting a book and a toy vacuum cleaner at this celebration. I felt a little bad about encouraging Abby to rip into the wrapping paper after weeks of trying to teach her not to tear paper, but what else could I do? She required a lot of help to get the packages open. She loved the new texture book and quickly fixed her attention on rubbing the furry page that pictured a dog. After some deliberation, I had decided to give her the book first, thinking it would be easier for her to give up for the next package than a toy. I was totally wrong. We had to finally hide the book to get Abby to even look at the next package. She was less impressed with the toy vacuum cleaner and more interested in getting back to her book.




Even a month later, the little vacuum cleaner has yet to capture Abby's interest like my real vacuum cleaner. However, Jonathan and I have the pleasure of involuntarily humming to ourselves: "I'm gonna clean the house all day, doo-da, doo-da..."

Next came cake! Abby was excited and surprised to see a giant plate with a huge round item being placed on her high chair tray. First, she dug both hands into the cake. Then she squeezed her hands and smushed the icing through her fingers. Next, she began to taste the icing and a few tiny bits of cake. Every now and then Abby would look at us as if to say, "Are you really okay with this?"






After barely so much as a surprised look, Abby began to really enjoy the icing. She ate what can best be described as two handfuls of vanilla icing. She was pretty messy, but most of the mess was confined to face and hands. This exercise in indulgence and exploration continued until Jonathan called a halt on the basis of time, mess, and sugar intake.






We discussed how we both felt like we'd witnessed the loss of innocence as we served our little baby her first processed sugar, basically for our own entertainment. Understand that we're not health nuts. In fact, we're a little farther in the other direction than we'd like to be - good intentions, poor follow-through. We want Abby to grow up with reasonably healthy eating habits. Fortunately, she was right back to her regular foods without complaint the next morning.

I did learn some first birthday cake lessons, though. I decided to serve Abby a cupcake at her birthday party a few days later - less icing because the icing is only on top. I also learned that the sugar overdose should have been adminstered earlier in the day.

By the time the video camera was turned off, Abby was in the throes of her first sugar rush and it was her bedtime. We let her "play it off" for half and hour or so. The combination of a sugar high and a tired child led to some very energetic but very clumsy pulling up, crawling, and playing.

We finally got Abby in bed about an hour later than usual. She went to sleep okay, but woke up twice during the night. What a day!