Will's First Birthday (observed)


On Saturday, we celebrated Will's birthday. Of course his birthday isn't until April 6, but his due date was March 24 and we will be out of town on his actual birthday, so we celebrated on March 24. Throwing a 1st birthday party is different than throwing a normal party. Here are some things we learned during the experience.

"Goodie Bags" are very important. As Will is only 1 and doesn't know what a goodie bag is, I figured that we didn't need any. I looked at them in the store. They seemed pretty lame. However, lame to me is not the same as lame to a kid. And even though Will is only 1, we had kids at the party who were older. I was properly schooled by a 6-year old who asked me if there were goodie bags and then, when faced with the realization that there were none, asked me why I was not smart enough to get them. I explained that this was my first kid birthday party. His extensive knowledge was the result of 11 different birthday parties. All of which had goodie bags.

Entertainment is very important. As we have a small grill, the main entertainment was watching Dan grill one burger at a time. Ok, maybe there were 5 or so burgers on the grill. They seemed to get done one at a time. Everyone was hanging out in the back yard, watching Dan grill. But he wouldn't create fire and flip the burgers up in the air. It was very sad. Then, after Hillary successfully managed to consume the first burger, people got to eat. Perhaps a bigger grill isn't such a bad idea.

Grilling Dan

The better entertainment came after dinner when it came time for cake. It turns out that even though a 1-year-old doesn't know what a goodie bag is, he can grok cake. We threw caution to the wind and broke Will's no wheat-milk-eggwhites-sugar diet. Will was confused when we first put him in his high chair with everyone sitting around watching, but he got into the cake zone after we put a slice in front of him. I can safely say that most of the crowd found this to be more entertaining than watching Dan grill.

In the Cake Zone

Will was also entertained by all of the people hanging out at his house. He was walking everywhere, mostly near the guests outside in the back. People were arriving and Will was out back, we thought. It seems I failed to replace the baby gate on the front door in between guests arriving. I realized this when Mindy walked in with Will. He had decided to wander out front! Lesson here: We will always leave the front door closed or baby-gated.

Will has had a pretty good year. His first year number of states visited will be 13: AZ, CA, CO (airport only), DC, IL (airport many times), MD, MI, NC, NV (airport only, but got to gamble), NY, OR, TX, VA. He has only been to 2 countries: Japan and US. He got to go on 31 plane flights, counting connections. He can't talk yet, but he tries to say, or he responds to: apple, ball, banana, bath, block, brrr (when cold), bird, caw (sound of bird), box, bye-bye (with waving), dad, dog, drawer, door, duckie, lama, mom, more (pointing), no (with shaking head), outside, splash, up. He learned to sit on his own at 4 months, crawl at 7 months, and walk at 10 1/2 months. His favorite TV show is "Handy Manny" about a repairman with talking, singing tools. He likes sports, watching the Tour de France, the World Cup, and lots of American Football on TV. He likes songs about satellites. Beep-Beep-There-Goes-A-Satellite!

What are Will's goals for before he turns 2? I hope that he starts talking so he can tell us why he is cranky (probably because we are hanging out at home and he is bored). We hope to take him to see some new places, maybe visit part of the Tour de France. Perhaps expose him to Mayan culture. He is already starting in the toddler class at his pre-pre-school. And what of his 2nd birthday? Definitely Goodie Bags!