Birthday!

Monday is A's first birthday! Hooray! Today was his birthday party. We had a lot of fun--TONS of people came, lots of kids running around, lots of presents, lots of food. I made chocolate buttermilk cupcakes that were AWESOME. A had the traditional first-birthday experience of squishing cake between his fingers and smushing it all over his face (and legs, and chair, and EVERYTHING). it was awesome...until he picked up some ice cream and put it in his mouth and made THE worst face and started crying...he musta gotten a brain freeze! Hehe. He got kind of overwhelmed by people at one point and L tried to put him down for a nap, but no go. Luckily, a bunch of people left around then, and by the time we gave up and got him up, he was ready to be in a better mood. He was so cute. One of the best presents he got was a collapsible 6-foot tunnel, which of course he went through with no problems whatsoever. In fact, he didn't want to come OUT of it! My little champ.

Milestones--A is now super awesome at walking while holding onto even just one of your fingers. He can stand unsupported for around 10 seconds if he is sufficiently distracted. He can cruise on just about anything--your legs, the counter, the couch, his toys...you name it.

His naps are still hit or miss. Every few days we say "maybe he's dropping a nap" and then nope, he needs two still. Ugh. So hard to figure out...luckily for the most part he isn't a super-crank because of it.

Food: he now feeds himself just about anything (see: cake). This is awesome. However. The downsides are that he has stopped wanting to be spoon-fed, and every meal takes forever. But he's a big boy! He loves having hamburger, grapes, strawberries, cheese, bread, chicken, etc on his tray to pick up and feed himself. It's so awesome. And occasionally hilarious: fruit in particular is very slippery, so watching him chase that around and try to pick it up is kind of funny. Apparently over vacation he got so frustrated by a banana that he just leaned over and picked it up with his mouth! Hehehe.

EI: he's pretty much not in need of Early Intervention services any more. All of his behaviours are at 12 months or above. However, I think they're paid through October, so we still get to go to our EI playgroup which is awesome :-) Soon we'll be starting up the fall session of our old playgroup too, and hopefully another round of baby gym as well.

I can't believe my baby's going to be a year old...and at the end of next week, I'll mark 8 months of being his nanny.

I am so, so, so blessed. I love my job :-D