A Day in the Life… Charlie’s 1st Birthday!

I’m trying to push aside the guilt that we didn’t do anything huge for Charlie’s 1st birthday – I tried to make the day as fun as possible for him, but I also didn’t plan a huge party. Winter birthdays are hard!! I couldn’t come up with a good plan of who to invite to a party for Charlie, especially since we would be inside, in our house… most of my friends with young children also have older kids, which means even more people in a not huge space… all while trying to make it special for Charlie. It just seemed tricky. We’re having my family over on Saturday, so that will be his official party.

So I try to make myself feel better. So what if we had an enormous party for Eli’s 1st (because it was the same week as Ben’s 30th). Or that I forgot to put Charlie in his “1” t-shirt (it honestly didn’t dawn on me until I looked back at Eli’s 1-year-old birthday pictures tonight). Where is my head? Oh well. Maybe it’s because we’re in a different season than when Eli turned 1 (in May, when it was actually warm enough to wear t-shirts) – I don’t even open Charlie’s drawer with t-shirts because it is just too cold to wear them.

BUT – in the morning, our upstairs feels very warm (we set it to 68 during the day, and heat rises so the upstairs is more like 70 degrees). Warm enough for Charlie to walk around in a diaper until I get the energy to wrestle him into some clothes for the day…

This video is right after Eli woke up this morning – it gives you an idea of what my mornings have been like lately, when Eli is whiny and makes it clear he doesn’t want to see me, he wants Dada. I like seeing Charlie toddle around in this too.

Morning of Charlie's 1st Birthday - in Eli's room (Jan 2010) from Sarah on Vimeo.

Charlie has really thinned out lately, though I’m glad he still has some pudge to his cute little bod.

Notice he’s wearing a diaper that is too big for him. That’s the problem with having two kids in different sized diapers – it’s easy to grab the wrong one, and sometimes I get lazy and just leave the wrong size on the child. It’s not as big of a deal when it’s a size bigger…

Eli cheered up a tiny bit when he realized it was Charlie’s birthday. He walked around his crib singing to him, which was sweet.

Then it was breakfast time – this week I started giving Charlie a bowl of Cheerios with milk and a spoon, and he loves it!

Eli helped me make a birthday card for Charlie. He told me to write -

Happy Birthday to Charlie

We love...

-baby hats

-I like him to crawl

-I like to share cars

-I don't like to share stamps

-I like when he laughs

-I like him to crawl up the stairs

Here’s a video of Eli singing Happy Birthday to Charlie at breakfast:

Eli Singing Happy birthday to Charlie on his 1st Birthday (Jan 2010) from Sarah on Vimeo.

Later, playing with cars -

Here he is, drinking a little bit of whole milk. He drank a little, which gives me hope. There was no tongue-wiping afterwards (like he did with the formula).

Eli likes to line his stamps up, then knock them all down with a ball. I like when he comes up with little games to play.

Snack time for Charlie often means a banana – he and Eli both will eat an entire banana each in about five seconds.

I love his chubby feet!

After dinner, it was time for his cupcake! We sang to Charlie and he had no concept of blowing out the candle, so I eventually blew it out for him.

He was tentative at first…

But as soon as he had a taste, he started shoving pieces of cake into his mouth…

Here’s a video of us singing to Charlie, his expression that he’s not sure what to think about the lit birthday candle, then him eating the cupcake – it is long (nearly five minutes) and I really only expect the grandparents to watch it, though it is funny to see his expressions :) Please don’t think I’m nuts for how many pictures I took in that five minutes either!

Charlie's 1st Birthday - Eating a Cupcake (Jan 2010) from Sarah on Vimeo.

Eli picked out a chocolate cupcake at the bakery, which he chowed down on while Charlie was digging into his vanilla cupcake.

Eli’s two, in case you need a reminder -

Chubby hands mixed with cupcake crumbs, frosting, and sprinkles – great combo :)

Cupcake crumbs almost up the nose are even better!

We opened gifts shipped to Charlie from some relatives – this is a bunny from Ben’s Severson grandparents (his grandma also knit him a Christmas stocking – it’s so cute!):

And my wonderful Aunt Babz sent Charlie his very own froggy snuggly!! He was so excited and snuggled with it right away. Eli got jealous and wanted one just like it, even though his froggy was sitting on the table.

I’m too tired to move pictures around, but below are some shots from the middle of the day, when we went out to run some errands – we stopped at the library branch near our house…

We stopped in the paper store to visit Eli’s favorite furry friends, the panda bears and polar bears…

Charlie all bundled up, sitting in the stroller:

It was a rainy, cold day, but the boys were pretty happy. We picked up our cupcakes at the bakery down the street, got free bread samples from Great Harvest… what more could you ask for? I think Charlie loved it :)

Finally, things I want to remember about Charlie at age 1:

• He walks really fast for such a little guy!
• He crawls up the stairs pretty well, but going down isn’t always easy for him
• He loves the books, Ten Little Ladybugs and Peek a Who
• He is very curious about the kitchen cupboards and is constantly walking in there, opening them up, and pulling stuff out. Yesterday he pulled out the mini food processor and cut his finger on the blade. We’re also in a very accident-prone stage… (don’t worry, I moved the food processor up high)
• He loves bananas, grapes, clementines, grapefruit, crackers, bread, turkey, cheerios, and yogurt.
• He is very snuggly and often walks over and jumps into my arms
• He has the tastiest cheeks. I kiss him constantly.
• He loves to follow Eli around and get into whatever Eli is working on
• He is the squirmiest kid when we’re trying to change his diaper/dress him – it is an exhausting process
• He loves to chew on phones and remote controls
• He loves dogs and squeals and laughs when they come close to him
• He loves soft textures, especially blankets. When he touches one, he often sticks his thumb in his mouth
• His favorite toys are balls - he loves to throw them, run and pick them up, then throw them again
• He loves looking out our front window or front door
• He wakes up at the crack of dawn and still doesn’t have a great nap schedule during the day, despite my best efforts. He often wakes up early because he pooped in his diaper.

Happy 1st Birthday Charlie! We love you so much and can’t believe you are so big already. I kept squeezing and kissing him all day, trying to soak in my newly 1-year-old little guy. Charlie is my little buddy and I appreciate his sweetness so much, especially when his big brother is being especially difficult (like between the hours of 8 and 8:30 a.m. and then 4 and 6 p.m…. I really think Eli would be such a happier kid if he napped. Thank goodness for the happy, sweet, fun moments that help me endure when he's throwing fits, crying, basically being an extremely emotional 2-year-old)

I’ll end this with a quick video (nine seconds) of Charlie walking:

Charlie Walking Fast - 1st Birthday (Jan 2010) from Sarah on Vimeo.