Christopher Birthday

Christopher turned 1 year old today. A quite surreal experience, I must say. One of those situations where you realize that time has passed by before it seemed just to do so. The new isn't so new anymore, but has retained his luster...and I've found myself not recalling how my life was before he came to be skin and flesh. Completely amazing and frightening at the same time...

All philosophising aside...I have birthday pictures....

First, the preparation. Daddy spent Friday night cutting fruits and vegatables and preparing trays for the guest who were to come for Christopher's up-and-coming festivities. Between sessions, Daddy spent a few minutes making runs to the grocery store (for forgotten items, screw-ups, or items that weren't thought of during the planning process) free-handing a stencil for Mommy to follow, dying the icing for the cake, and fine-tuning certain parts of the cake to give Mommy a bit of a break during her all night cake-icing extravaganza. Colleen did the hard part, and did a fantastic job of it if I do say so myself...not that I'm biased or trying to save my butt in any way...honest disclosure.


This was the final product. A few differences from the original cake concept, but, all-in-all, a better end-result. More visual textures and, althought it might not appear to be so, much easier for me to stencil in and for Colleen to ice.

So the party started. We were honestly surprised that we had about 40 people at our house to help us celebrate Christopher's 1st year on this planet. All of the family (in one fashion or another) and a few of Colleen's friends who live in the Philadelphia proximity we in attendance. Christopher was very tired on his birthday though. He has about 6 teeth all trying to force their way through his seamless gumline at the same time and has been on the go with Mom and Dad during their run-arounds to prep for his birthday party. He participated well considering those circumstances. Here are the obligatories: Christopher in his high chair/balloons attached, Christopher with Nana Marianne and Pop-Pop Bob, and the "cake-eating" process. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed that he did not just dive right into the cake head firstand make an incredible mess of himself. Instead he picked at it, took a small piece, put it in his mouth and winced a bit. I attribute his lack of interest in the cake to his lack of having anything really sweet prior to the cake (aside from sweet fruits - cantalope, honey dew, et. al.), but who knows. Regardless, he was able to make a bit of a mess of himself, so it wasn't a complete disappointment. We did discover that, at least thus far in his life, he's not a huge fan of sweets.




We then openned presents and played until around 8:30, when we all (Christopher included) decided that enough was enough and he retired for the night. Overall, the day was a complete success. Mommy and Daddy planned and prepared for the festivities effeciently and effectively, and Christopher cooperated, even through the mouth pain and general fatigue from a weeks worth of running around the Delaware Valley area.

I hope he really had a wonderful day, although I know he will never remember it. Surely and event that meant more to Colleen and me than it ever will for him. It was worth all the work for me, so I suppose I could call it a success.