I am writing to you about my ONE YEAR OLD SON. That is insane–absolutely bonkers, I tell ya. Where has the year gone? And can I get it back, please?
As much as we may try to disbelieve it, yesterday was Finn’s first birthday. This whole week, we’ve been awash in nostalgia and gratefulness–and also a little sadness, as we realize how many baby-centric moments have passed. Forever. It’s been a little weepy, over here.
Since Finn’s bday fell on a Wednesday, and since Sona is back to work, we decided to play it pretty low-key. We’d initially planned a party for the weekend, but we ended up cancelling it after there were so many scheduling conflicts. “He’s one,” I keep reminding Sona. “He won’t even know if we do throw him a party.”
Still, we wanted yesterday to be special for the three of us. I took Finn to the nanny in the morning, giving him some time to play with his bestie, Sidy–and giving me time to do some last-minute prep–and then picked him up after his first nap. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how’d he’d like to spend the day and came to the conclusion that, like his momma, he really loves three things: good food, water, and wandering.
So, I took him for an al fresco pizza lunch (he ate two slices), walked to the neighborhood splash pad (where we sat for 20 minutes, thinking the water features were broken, until a 5 year old told us that you had to press the button–mom fail), and went for Italian ice.
While he was taking his afternoon nap, I decorated the living room with gifts and balloons, knowing that he’d either love it–or he’d be so freaked out that he would run (okay, crawl), screaming, in the opposite direction.
Sona went by the farmer’s market on her way home and picked up some fresh mushroom ravioli–another favorite–for dinner. (It was a hit. He ate the entire plate full in approx. 37 seconds.)
When he finally woke up from a long nap, we excitedly carried him into the living room, half expecting him to explode from excitement. That, he did not.
Instead, he did what he always does: carefully surveyed the situation, suspiciously and cautiously.
After a minute or two, he decided he was, actually, very excited–about the balloons. And he ran around, trying to catch them, hugging them obsessively. Gifts? What gifts?
We were waiting for a balloon to pop, traumatizing him beyond repair and, henceforth, instilling in him an insurmountable fear of birthdays.
That didn’t happen, thankfully.
After a while, he did take an interest in his gifts. Once he noticed there were new toys, all bets were off. He manically moved from one to the next, pointing and grunting: “GIVE. ME. THIS. NOW.” He might have been a little overwhelmed.
We also, of course, got him a cake–one of many, this week, I’d imagine. Even though we plan to do an actual cake smash shoot in a week or so, we still wanted him to have the pleasure of going at it on his birthday, too. So, we let him have his way with the cake, which really just meant that he licked off every single icing balloon like it was his job.
Here’s video of the whole affair:
I’m off to go pick up Mimi and Pops. They’re here for what we’ll call “birthday, continued.” More balloon-induced stuper to follow, I’m sure.