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Opening Birthday presents from Grandma

Well, yes, that year went fast. I mean, wow.

And yet, as Michael puts it, it's been such a natural transition from being a couple to being parents. We actually hardly remember what we did before we had Jimmy. He fills our days with such light, laughter, and joy. Babies are amazing. Our Jimmy-bubba is amazing.

And he's one. And I can't quite believe that we've had him for a whole year. So, we celebrated Jimmy, our Winter baby, we celebrated him as best we could in the US Summer.

We started with presents from Grandma, Granny & Pop, and Auntie K. An excellent selection of clothes and bath toys, books and Wiggles CD's, and some very Finnish books, respectively. Plus a newly finished jumper and a yellow ball from Mumma and Dadee.

And then breakfast! My parents started a nice birthday tradition of letting the birthday child choose what they wanted for breakfast on their birthday, although I'm pretty sure pancakes were off the menu on school days... Now, Jimmy is a little too young to express what he wants to eat, unless it's right in front and he doesn't want it, so we did a little guess work and went with fruit:

Yummy summer fruit, because we could. And Jimmy ate everything except a few blackberries. We were all full once we'd finished our plates. At one point, the conversation took a serious turn...

Hmmmm... it's ok, because someone told a joke, and it was apparently a good one :)

There is a tinge of sadness in all the excitement, because Jimmy is growing up so fast and those top teeth are the end of a truly gummy smile, but they open up a whole new world of food for our bubba. I'm going to have to stop calling him bubba soon... ok, maybe by his second birthday...

Naps and lunch with Dada followed breakfast. Yay - lunch with Dadee! It might be a regular activity, but lunch with Dada this week involved oti (a ginger drink, more soon), half a punnet of blueberries, and a 'big' yellow ball. Not to mention a new giraffe top from Grandma (it's this week's photo for the 52 Project).

Jimmy and I had the afternoon to ourselves, listening to the Wiggles and eating (and throwing) bananas. Jimmy really likes bananas, because he says "ah nana" and we give him a quarter of a banana, skin and all (he likes biting the skin... it's a little odd, but he has worked out how to peel the skin, he only does it when he wants to).

Once Dadee returned from work, we went to the pool. Have I mentioned that Jimmy loves swimming? The water is usually the perfect temperature for how hot it this week has been, and that day was no exception. The yellow ball and a rubber frog joined us, but it was all about the diving and splashing and kicking.

Oh my Swimmy Jimmy!

Then we had dinner and "cake". But with a bubba who wasn't going to sleep after sleeping on the walk home from lunch with Dadee, things had to be simple, so (frozen) pizza and ginger bread dinosaurs it was! 

 

I had thought to make banana bread and then put a dinosaur on top, plus a candle, but we had no means of lighting the candle, so we just went with fruit and dinosaurs.

Spending time with Jimmy in the evening, instead of the constant stream of "out of the kitchen", "no, you can't be in here, it's not safe for bubba's", etc, was the main reason for keeping the evening simple. Jimmy is highly unlikely to remember particulars about this day, or the pool party we're having on the weekend, but hopefully he will always remember that his birthday is a special day, because Mumma and Dadee spent time with him on his birthday. And at this age, time is more valuable than nice cake or potato masala (what I had originally planned for dinner).