Tuesday, September 07, 2004

Happy First Birthday, Alex!!!

Dear Alex,

When you’re reading this during your 18th birthday, and you think we’re just the most uncool, socially inept parents in the world, think about your first birthday and the purity of it all. Being able to shove all the cake frosting in your face and not a single person in the room judging you for it. Only cool parents allow their kids to do that.

We celebrated your birthday a day early, on Labor Day, because it was the best day for everyone to show up. Grandma, Uncle Ron and Auntie Eriko drove up from Redmond, your oldest sister and her your brother-in-law (yikes, I just realized that.) showed up with your niece Jane and Nephew Joseph, who are both incidentally older than you, and Uncle Brendon showed up too as well, probably mostly to see you get nutso.

Of course, first things first... We started off your party with a nap. You needed your afternoon nap before the festivites so that you wouldn’t conk out on it halfway after being a super cranky baby. So while you were napping, Uncle Brendon and I got a cake for you, a 45-dollar chocolate cheesecake for your Uncle and Daddy, and some more balloons from Haggen because the ones we got you the day before crapped out severely. Everyone knows a deflated Sponge is just not the same.

Midway through your nap, we got some pizza for the masses, and when you woke up, you had a slice as well. Everyone was getting a little restless because they had arrived at noonish, and you didn’t wake up till almost 2:30, so we had to entertain ourselves by sitting around and watching a “What Not to Wear” Marathon on TLC. That’s a program on cable TV that abuses fashion-impaired people and forces them to dress and look metrosexual, even though most of us could probably do it ourselves if we had the show’s budget.

Shortly after, your playmates and your sister arrived, and all of you launched a destructive course of action against the balloons. It was a balloon smackdown. You were tugging on the strings, Joseph was beating them down, and Jane was just sitting on them. The adults sat on the perimeter of the room and their energy levels were involuntarily sucked out of them by watching you kids massacre the balloons. Don’t worry, none of them popped, though SpongeBob does look a little defeated today.

When it came time for your cake, you had a special one all by yourself because you’re the birthday boy! When two digital cameras and a video camera trained on you, you devoured the cake with gusto. For some reason, the green icing that spelled out the one overrode all the other colors, and your mouth looked as if you’d just ate a frog. You were actually quite clean, to your credit, until I stuck a SpongeBob hat on you. You reached up to get it, and the frosting was then in your hair. Some of it got in your eye and we wiped it off, but with a fell swipe, you made it ten times worse. Fearing that I was going to be responsible for blinding my only son with frosting, I took you out for a bath. Dude, I had a slice of the cake, maybe a fraction of what you had, and I was done. That thing had enough sugar in it to cause a school riot.

During your bath, Uncle Ron took a bunch of nudie pictures of you. I had to drain the original bath water because the frosting was so greasy, and there were chunks of cake in there.

And after your bath, you peed on us.

Then it was present time! Mom helped you open all your presents, and you were very very please with... the wrapping paper. The toys were all sorts of different varieties, from developmental destructive (the ball and hammer contraption) to entertainment (the carnival one) to developmental constructive (stacking cups) to plain destructive (the military helecopter). There was also a ride on tricycle, and toy cars, and crayons. There was also a crack pipe in there somewhere, but that was just Daddy being careless. Silly Daddy!

More desserts and some spring rolls, and everyone went home. The rest of the night was pretty quiet, Auntie Maralise stopped back, and then Daddy went to bed somewhat early because it was going to be his first day back from paternity leave the next day.

Happy Birthday, Son!

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