July 29, 2008

• Of a Baby and a Birthday

  [This post is dedicated to my family, who wasn't able to be here for her first birthday]

  My baby is one year old.

  

  Unbelievable…

  

  The morning of her birthday found both Ben and I a basket case of emotions. Remembering her arrival into the world one year ago, the 11 days overdue that we awaited her coming, the intense 17-hour labor, then finally meeting a chubby 8 pound, 6 ounce little GIRL when we thought all along we were having a boy (not that we were told that, we just “felt”).

  

  I remember holding her in my arms for the very first time, looking into her round little face, her eyes squinting around at the big bright world she had just entered. I didn’t quite believe she was really mine. My very own baby! I remember feeling so excited before she was born but also sooo scared sometimes. But the moment I first held her all fears disappeared and all I felt toward her was love. A more intense love than I ever imagined a mother could have for her child.

  My mother was present at the birth, and afterwards she asked me if I was even excited when Zoe’ was born, because I hardly said anything (I guess that was unusual, for me to not say anything). But oh yes, I was excited. And deeply moved. All I could do was sit there and cry, holding my baby tightly, whispering, “Baby, baby, baby…” The miracle of experiencing a child of my own being born,  being birthed through my own body, made me speechless. I thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I fell in love that moment.

  So reminiscing all those things (Ben very early in the morning, me at a more reasonable hour) brought both of us to tears. That’s putting it mildly. It was more like weeping and wailing. But so very thankful for this beautiful little treasure God has entrusted to us… She has enhanced and enriched our little family, and love having her in our family!

  ———————————————————

  The day of her birthday proved to be rather eventful. Eventful, that is, if you are a one year old child. And eventful if you are the mother of that one year old child.

  We started out running errands in the morning, getting a few things together for her party in the evening. I had asked Ben earlier if I should just be a practical mother and buy an ice cream cake ( I’m not a huge cake fan anyway) or if I should be a vain mother and try to make her a cute cake. He liked the vain mother/cute cake idea, which scared me badly, because I’ve never decorated a cake before. But I’m one of those that believes if your authority condones something, it’ll be blessed, so I attempted it.

  So we came home around noon, with Zoe’ taking only a 5-minute nap in the car. I started on the baking immediately. Meanwhile, I took Zoe’ potty, but that was unsuccessful, so, because of her diaper rash, I let her run around the house without a diaper on (I know, BAD idea). She immediately ran to a “no-no” area, and dug around under the kitchen sink, pulling out any supplies she could find. In doing so, she dumped a huge pile of dishwash soap on the floor, and attempted eating it. After checking that Joy with Bleach doesn’t kill babies if they eat it, I cleaned her up  and she continued playing.

  I was busy baking/making icing so I wasn’t being an attentive mother, even though she was in the same room with me. I checked on her a while later, and saw she was playing in a puddle of water. I wondered how in the world she had gotten water, because there was none available to her anywhere. She was playing pat-a-cake and splashing all in it. Much to my horror, I discover she is playing in her pee! Off we rush to the bathtub, taking a quick bath while the cake is baking.

  She still wasn’t ready for a nap after all that, so she played for a while again. After finding her in a bucket of peaches, I decided to sit her in her highchair, out of trouble, with a fresh peach to eat. Knowing she was out of trouble, I hardly checked on her except to talk while she was jabbering.  A few moments later, I look to discover this:

  

  Peaches everywhere. The picture does not do justice because there were peaches in her hair, on the wall, on the string of balloons on her high chair, on her balloons, on the floor… She had eaten a few bites of the peach but then taken her hands into it and threw chunks and peach juice all over the 4 ft’ radius around her. So off we hauled to the bathroom for bath #2.

  It was finally bedtime, and with a sigh of relief, we both went to bed…

  She later had bath #3 because she was in the bathroom while I was showering, getting ready for her party, and she got so wet from trying to get in the tub that bath #3 we gave her…

  ——————————————————–

  Her party was a happy time. The tears were over, and it was celebration time.

  

  The cake turned out lovely (for a first-time cake-baker. AND I must confess that I bought a cake mix and I bought a fondant icing to make things easier for me. After that Eventful Day I knew why I had the urge to do so!) Two 6-inch cake pans of cake mix stacked on top of each other.

  

  

  The ribbons are just that – ribbons. The dots are buttercream icing, and the smooth look is fondant icing (box from Walmart! ha!) Really, it looks more glamorous than the easy fixes I took!

  

  

  

  The tiara didn’t last long. We managed to snap a few cute pictures but that was it.

  

  

  

  

  After I had already made the cake I was worried that it wasn’t the kind that she could really dig into. We quickly found out that wasn’t a problem! She devoured that cake.

  In fact, she must have had a huge sugar intake, because she was wired and so hyper after that. She was racing around the house until 11:30, when we finally fell asleep in her crib. Her normal bedtime is 8:00.

  Some of Ben’s family was able to be here, and we had a lovely time with them! I am so glad that we have one side of family living close to us!

  So, my baby is one year old!
  Cheers to Baby Zoe’!

  ——————————————————-

  I tried to put piggies in her hair the other day… and laughed for about 5 minutes straight after that because it looks so cute/ridiculous with her little amount of hair.

  

  

  

  Ben’s only comment was this: “You either look like the mom who thinks her baby has more hair than she has, or that wishes she had more hair than she has.”

  Either way, I got a giggle out of it!

   

   

   

   

   

   

  • 4:09 pm
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