Birthday Boy!

Yesterday we celebrated Joseph's first birthday. It was a great day and so fun to reflect on how much we have loved having him in our family this past year.

Of course we did the obligatory birthday cake. In both my family and Todd's family, the tradition is to give the baby his own cake and let him do whatever he wants with it. I was worried it would be unhealthy for Joseph to have so much sugar, but not that much really makes it to his stomach so I figure it's okay once a year.

He started out a little tentatively:



Then he started getting more into it:



Then we had to move him to the chair because he started crawling all over and getting frosting everywhere:



Then he decided to eat his hat:



At some point during every meal, he ends up deciding it's time to rub food into his hair; yesterday was no exception:



The finished product:



After that we bathed him. (And I decided that next time, we are just going to do the whole thing in the bath to begin with). The frosting actually left his hair and skin surprisingly soft and smooth. Then he opened a book from dad, and washed his cake down with wrapping paper:



We couldn't decide on a theme for his party, so we mixed-and-matched with his favorite things -- beach ball plates, dump truck cups, golf ball napkins, and there was an animal balloon that didn't make it into the picture:



His cousins Elena and Jonah (and Aunt Kiersten and Uncle Noah) came over for dinner and a little party:



His dad gave him his first set of golf clubs, and he loves them:



He actually chases balls around the floor and hits them with the clubs. It's pretty impressive:



He also got his little car (see post below) in the mail today. We thought he wouldn't be able to ride it yet but he can, and he loves it too. But no pictures.

We are so glad to have Joseph in our family. He is the happiest, sweetest little guy. Happy birthday, Joseph!

Aspirations

To clear up the man-child’s stuffy nose, we sometimes pull out his arch-nemesis, the aspirator. He really thinks the aspirator is great fun to play with on its own, but if you try to suction out his nose, he flips out and hurls his head in every possible direction—as any normal person should do when confronted by an assailant attempting to shove something up his or her nose.After repeatedly failing to aspirate him, but successfully angering him, I thought I would show Joseph that the aspirator was nothing to be scared of by aspirating his toy alligator. This is about the time that I realized that I had officially lost the ability to think rationally as a result of parenting. But you need to keep in mind that I already tried bribery and the socratic method to no avail, and desperate times call for desperate measures.

Despite my creativity, and the obvious lack of physical or emotional harm to the toy alligator, Joseph still held a deep-seeded mistrust of the aspirator when I pointed the business end at his nose. However, he did take the aspirator from me and demonstrate to me how to properly aspirate an alligator.I tried to get a video of this, but this picture gives you an idea. Sometimes he aspirates the alligator’s eyes, but he also does a pretty good job of getting the thing in the alligator’s plastic nostrils for a not-quite-one-year-old.

Walking (with assistance)

This cute little walker/ride-on is what Todd and I are getting Joseph for his first birthday (coming up this Monday!!!)
Why?
Because THIS is what he uses right now for a walker.
Todd got me this stool when I came home from the hospital with Joseph, since I could not climb into our bed seeing as how my abdominal muscles did not function. We had no idea it would be such a fun toy for Joseph as well.

He pushes this thing around the house all the time. He's also moved onto a bigger chair. Hopefully he'll like the car better (it's cuter, and doesn't have nasty corners for him to injure himself on), but you never know.

Things my son does not do:

1. smoke
2. talk
3. give kisses
4. stand on his own
I’m guessing that he’ll figure out most of these things during the next few months though.

Inanimate objects my son appears to recognize and what he does with them in an attempt to mimic observed behaviors

1. Hair brushes: he likes to rub them against my hair or against his own head
2. Cell phones: he puts them on his shoulder or next to his ear. He does not talk into them.
3. Golf clubs: he consistently sweeps them across the floor and tries to hit other objects (It may be that he will do this with any similarly shaped implement, but so far its just golf clubs)
4. Remote controls: he points them at TVs and computers, pushes buttons, and looks to see what changes. He really likes the ‘6’ key, so we end up watching Telemundo (channel 66) frequently. Today, he found the ‘mute’ button and figured out that he could make the sound go on and off.

Watching LOST Makes Us Sad, But Passing the Bar Makes Us Happy

Today, after some days of serious and intense anxiety, we found out that Todd passed the California Bar Exam. Hooray!!!

I am so proud of him. I can't imagine how hard it must have been to try to study while taking care of the baby during the day, and then heading off to the library at night when I got home so that he could study some more. Yuck, yuck, and yuck. But he was a trooper and despite getting into a panic last night about what a "putative spouse" was and why he hadn't written about it on his essays, he will soon actually be an attorney. Which is better than we can say for me.

Our celebration today was low-key. It involved me jumping up and down a WHOLE lot when we first found out, the baby being excited yet confused about all of the commotion, Todd getting Baja Fresh since he hadn't eaten much in a couple of days, and catching up on The Office and Lost. Maybe we'll do something more exciting tomorrow.

Thanks everyone for your support and prayers. And a special thanks to our friend Liz. Liz babysat Joseph a whole bunch in the weeks leading up to the exam so that Todd could study. Seriously, Liz, we don't think he would have passed without the extra study time. You rock!

Joseph Atticus, in a nutshell

I'm not going to try to catch this blog up the infinite cuteness of Joseph. But I will provide a few highlights there for those unfamiliar with his glory. Here are a few things about him.

1. He loves getting into mischief.


2. He loves the park.

3. He loves his sunglasses. (Seriously. He gets so excited whenever we put them on him.)

4. He loves the beach (and he loves his daddy).

5. He loves to read (and he loves his mommy).

6. He loves, loves, loves to eat.

7. He loves the dishwasher.

8. He really, really, really loves junkmail. But we usually try to prevent him from eating it.

9. He has AWESOME cheeks. (And he likes to vote. And he speaks Spanish.)

Genesis

I have debated entering the blogdom for some time. At one point I was all set, and I asked Todd to make me a blog. A few minutes later he gave me a word document entitled "Erin's Thoughts," like the "blog" that Ryan made for Creed on "The Office." Hah, hah, hah. So I gave up. But then I decided I wanted a place to chronicle the adventures of my awesome baby, soon-to-be toddler. Because lately, when people ask me things like, "When did he first roll over?" I'm like, "Umm, when he was six months? Or five months? Or something?" And then I realize how terrible my memory is, and how I want to remember all of the cute things he does, and how I don't scrapbook.

So, here we are. I think we're gonna make this thing private, because I am utterly and completely terrified of sexual predators (thanks to the scary cases I have read and dealt with at work). For now we just won't put any identifying information, but if you come across this and want to be a reader, shoot me an email. (I say "we" hoping that Todd will jump on board and make plenty of posts of his own. After all, he is the current primary-care-giver-and-witnesser-of-all-things-Joseph.)

You can thank my mom for the title. She lamented the infiltration of her neighborhood by ex-Californians, only to lose two daughters to Californians and California. Poor lady. But I think it is great to have moved to my childhood vacation spot, and life here is good to us.