My baby is one today

It's 11:20 pm and the house is quiet. Everyone else is in bed, where I should be. But, while I am feeling extremely tired, I am also feeling extremely grateful. My baby turned one day, and I am grateful for his life, for his health, for the opportunities of the past year to love and to grow.

The first birthday celebration is the party that the child could do without. But the mother, never. I need to celebrate this wonderfully hard, wonderfully joyful year of adjusting to a new spirit in our home, a spirit that came with his own agenda and his own personality, and of adjusting to a new body in our home, a body that came with demands that I must meet, often before meeting my own. I need the first birthday celebration to reflect on how we have grown together, this little guy and me, this little guy and us as a family. I am grateful tonight for the chance I was given, one year ago today, to love yet another person with such breadth and depth.

Because we're in Utah (and have been for 2 weeks now), we had a big shin-dig: We went swimming all afternoon. J cooked us up some of his famous pasta, meatballs, sausage. H had 2 servings. We played memory with pics of H throughout the past year. H (with help from all of his cousins and siblings!) opened presents. I made H an egg-free cake and the rest of the hooligans egg-full cupcakes. H thoroughly enjoyed his cake, and after a quick bath for H, we capped it all off with sparklers. Happy Birthday, to our favorite little H, who is really not-so-little any longer!

My 4 favorite things about H:

(1) His hugs and kisses, especially after he wakes up

(2) His "Whoa!" when he sees any interesting food or contraption

(3) His smile--he smiles with his whole face/body

(4) His love of books. He'll tear anything and everything apart, but not books. He sits and flips through them. A boy after my own heart.

California: The good, the bad, and the ugly

The Good:

The kids' delight in riding the rides at Knott's Berry Farm. (And my turn on the Xcelerator and the Silver Bullet were not too shabby either.)

We talked Sweetie into trying the Sidewinder and she hated every minute of it. The first pic is going up (see J waving?), the second, coming down (see Sweetie, gasping?).

Mister, however, went on everything they would let him ride, including the Ghost Rider roller coaster. Sweetie, H, and I hovered by the exit, with me sure that his lightweight body would fly out on any one of those rickety curves. Here he is at the end--he looks like he's kind of smiling?

Cotton candy. Definitely a good.

The beach, ahhhh, the beach. I wondered how relaxing it really would be with an 11-month-old who eats anything he can find, but he only tried the sand once and then decided crawling around in circles in it and digging in it were better than eating it. And, surprisingly enough, he loved the water and was quite distraught when his mean dad would not let him crawl out past his head. Mister and Sweetie tried their hands at a sand castle and then gave it up for wave jumping. J got the kite going higher than imaginable (see if you can find the tiny speck of kite in the picture.)

The Bad:

H got sick. Surprise, surprise. Actually, it was a surprise to us since he developed the world's worst diarrhea while we were at Knott's. After going through the 8 diapers that I just happened to have brought with on some strange fit of over-preparedness, we went back to J's parents and called it a day. Here he is, the unhappy little guy. He got close to smiling on the carousel, but otherwise was a wreck.

The Ugly:

Despite my love of the beach, gotta put the sand in "the ugly" category. Notice the drool pouring off of H's chin in this pic. Drool and sand are definitely an ugly mix.

Of course, Sweetie immediately decided to try her hand at creating the perfect sand angel. Sand angel? There are no such things, Sweetie!!! And there's a reason for that. Sand crusted hair is ugly.

In related news

The death of Green Glider/Recliner has been followed by a sudden loss of important items throughout the house: Kids' Computer has suffered what appears to be a stroke with accompanying memory loss; Computer Chair has died from a broken back and arm; Upstairs Air Conditioner has been given 6 months to live; Microwave is nonresponsive; and Expensive Golf Clubs are nowhere to be found. Needless to say, foul play is suspected. Possible culprits include the following:

7-Year-Old Boy, who has taken a sudden interest in golfing. When approached for a comment, 7-year-old boy said, "Sweetie probably did it."

Which brings up to 5-Year-Old Girl, who has been seen countless times sitting on the back of Computer Chair. When asked to comment, 5-year-old girl said, "When are we going to get a new one?"

Almost-1-Year-Old Baby, who loves to push the buttons on the computer. When asked to comment, he said, "Whoa."

Summer in the Desert

means that if we're not home, we've gone searching for water. In the past 3 weeks, we've visited 5 different pools, the "beach" at the local clubhouse, and the splashpad at the zoo.

Join me

over here today.