A year has passed and as Jack said at breakfast this morning, “Well, you made it Claire!” More than made it, she’s a thriving, healthy, happy little girl. So what do we have planned for her birthday today?
Well, we’ll play and fawn over her. She’ll get a bath and do the other stuff she loves but that’s a pretty typical day anyway. It’s just Jack’s got a myriad of finals that will keep him away from home until late tonight and I’m scrambling to finish some home improvement projects before we leave. I’ve seen what other friends, family and strangers do for their baby’s first birthday. They plaster their walls with photos of their child from every day over the past twelve months. They make collages of photos. They blow up smiling baby pictures to enormous proportions. They make classy hors d’oeurves and invite everyone their child has come in contact with over the previous year.
I admire people that can put that much energy into something their kid’s not going to remember but while I’m busy fixing up the house, the best I can probably muster is some cake. Even that’s iffy.
Poor Evelyn didn’t even get that on her second birthday. We were traveling back from home for Jack’s summer internship and when we arrived that afternoon, didn’t have the ingredients or strength to produce a cake. So she just got a blob of microwaved cookie dough and two candles lit on the stove burner. Still, she thought it was pretty cool:
So am I a bad mother? Nah. I may not be an excellent party hostess but I’ll work on that when my kids are old enough to appreciate the effort.
