Frida is 1!

We had a nice weekend with lots of family in town: Grandma & Grandpa (who were already here celebrating cousin Ezra's birth-- he's gorgeous and healthy, and everyone is doing well), Omi & Opa, and Aunt Liz and her boyfriend Aaron. On Sunday we had a party with a few friends and neighbors, along with all the family. Frida was skeptical about cupcakes:



But she quickly got the idea:







[Edited to add: this cupcake recipe is divine. AND uses up one large, or two small, zucchini, for those of you with gardens or CSA shares.]

She got some lovely gifts-- thanks everyone, especially for the travel bed from Grandma and Grandpa, which will come in very handy next week on Martha's Vineyard. A few friends also made donations in her name-- thanks again!-- to the Central Asia Institute.

On Monday, Frida's actual birthday, we went to the beach with Omi and Opa. Frida loooooves the surf! Opa took her into very gentle lapping water, just getting her legs wet (it was cold!), and she was exhilarated, shrieking and jumping. When her lips were starting to get blueish, he lifted her onto the warm, drier sand to toddle for a bit, she made a beeline back for the water, over and over. She didn't even mind when she fell forward and got a face full. I didn't bring a camera, so have to wait for pics and/or video from Omi and Opa.

That night Grandma and Grandpa joined us for a dinner at which I made some of her favorite foods: fried chicken (yum!); corn on the cob (sliced off for her; her 3 teeth aren't *quite* up to the job); and green beans. Later that evening, Sam did the ice cream dance together with J., Opa, and Grandpa. It worked so well they got TWO pints!

Many many thanks to Opa for putting up our rain barrel, getting our grill functioning again, and installing a fabulous new faucet in our kitchen sink, so that we don't have to stoop forward quite so uncomfortably when doing dishes. Thanks also to Omi for dinner, and for lots of cleaning and organizing, including rearranging our porch so that it's a nice place to spend time. And thanks to both Grandma and Omi for lots of help with both Frida's party and her birthday dinner.

Sam tolerated being the non-center of attention quite well for a five-year-old; he got to play nerf baseball with Grandpa and Liz and Aaron, showed off his bike-riding skills, painted Frida a onesie, and ran around like a crazy boy at her party. It helped having so MANY people around; there was generally a lot of grandparental/auntie attention to go around. The main negative effect of his not-birthday-kid status, I think, was that we neglected entirely to feed him during the party and afterward, so that for at least 6 hours-- from 4-6 while everyone was noshing, and then afterward for a couple of hours when the family stuck around for gift opening, and then after that while we continued to nosh and tidy and other friends who'd gotten the time wrong stopped by-- he ate nothing more than a cupcake. And at 9:30, when we were belatedly putting him to bed, he asked, "But when are we going to have dinner?" And when we explained that we weren't having dinner because we'd been snacking so much, he said he hadn't eaten at all other than the cupcake, and then started sliding into a miserable fit in which he insisted that we ALL have dinner TOGETHER, something we'd COOKED, and sit down to eat it AT THE SAME TIME. And once he'd recovered (over tortellini, hastily defrosted and eaten all together; at 10PM some requests are worth giving in to), he somberly explained that nobody had remembered to feed him because nobody was really paying much attention to him, because it was Frida's party. Tough, tough life this boy has-- he got not one, but SEVERAL gifts from sensitive grandparents who didn't want him to feel left out. Anyway, he's none the worse for wear; probably better, in fact, for having adjusted to not having the family focus on him all the time.

Finally: yesterday I tried to take a proper birthday picture of Frida. I got some ok ones but nothing that feels like it will serve as her One Year Photo; maybe that will work better on Martha's Vineyard, with lots of time on our hands. The best so far:












[See the rain barrel hidden there behind the Rose of Sharon bush? aqua blue, taller than Frida? It collects rainwater from two downspouts, and will (when we set that part up) then drain, via a spigot we can open or shut, into two drip hoses, watering flower beds along the house, on one side, and around the Japanese maple, on the other. I hate the idea of watering the garden & lawn with drinking water; as a result, it gets pretty brown during dry weeks, especially in a summer like the one we're having this year. So this will help a little bit.]

PS: Tonight she climbed onto our couch. By herself. Well, she grabbed onto J's shorts to haul herself up, after swinging one foot up (the couch is at about armpit height for her). But she could just as easily have used the arm rest for that. We're doomed. A few weeks ago, I was predicting she'd be on top of the (upright) piano at 18 months. I'm revising that down to 16 months. Tops.