My Big Giant One Year Old

Because my little boy has the cutest chipmunk cheeks and most gorgeous blue eyes anyone has ever seen, we get stopped a lot by strangers who want to ooh and aah and give unsolicited advice and comments. The fourth most common remark (after the eyes, the cheeks, and the Gerber baby) is "What a big boy! He's so big for his age!" Maybe it's the weight obsessed culture we grew up in, but I hate it when people say that. Which is stupid because he's a baby and babies are supposed to be round and squishy. And he does have those cheeks (and, depending on his facial expression, a double chin). But he's actually in the 25th percentile, so he's on the smaller side of normal for his age. So to those people I say: Stop calling my baby fat, and stop putting your greasy germy stranger hands all over his face. But thank you for thinking he's cute.

Anyway...back to something less irrational and irrelevant. Last Friday, July 17, my sweet baby boy turned one. We had a great day celebrating him.

I started the day by torturing him with a one-year photo session. This is the part of the day where I'm that mom who thinks her son is a doll that would be fun to play dress-up with. He was actually a pretty good sport about it, and the pictures didn't turn out half bad.


For the rest of the early morning we hung out and played. This included reading time. The boy loves books, and he's also a total ham. Not sure where he got either of those qualities.


Matt took a half-day at work and came home early so we could go to the beach. If you want my opinion, the beach is a lot more fun when there are two adults. Then there are two pack mules instead of one, and you can have conversations that have actual words. But our progeny is a big fan of the beach (as are we), and we had a lot of fun.



After Ben took his afternoon nap, we went to the Orange County Fair. In case you were thinking "I'd love to do something fun for my kid's birthday. Wish we had the money to go to Disneyland. Maybe the fair..." don't. Disneyland is probably cheaper and definitely more fun. But unlike some people I know, I actually enjoy the fair. Outside of the rides that fit in a suitcase, the fried food, and the games that federal law requires be physically impossible with prizes that no one would ever want and could get for $3 at Target, the fair is pretty fun. We discovered the Fun Zone, which, it turns out, is the only thing at the fair that a one year old can do. And the only thing he could eat was fried chicken fingers and fried zucchini. We were going for youngest person to have clogged arteries and type II diabetes. We were going to get him a toy, but like heck I was going to spend $80+ on games to maybe win one, and the souvenir toys were lame and not at all age appropriate. Also, I gave him a bit of my ice cream. He then screamed like someone was killing him for 15 minutes when I wouldn't let him eat the whole thing. So we skipped the toy and went home.



When we got home we gave him his presents. We just got him a few things...a few toys, a DVD, fingerpaints, shoes, and a couple of clothing items. His favorite: the tissue paper.

Happy first birthday, my big giant hefty toddler.