Belated Birthday Post

I was quite proud of the way her cake turned out--
and it was DELICIOUS!

Time has flown since Emmy's birthday celebration, and I haven't had a moment to sit and write it all up for posterity.  Even now I should probably be waking my sleepy one-year-old because my furrier daughter is beginning to cry to be let out for her evening walk and daylight is waning.

I will ignore her for just a bit longer since I know that once Emily wakes up it might be at least another week before I get the time to sit down and finish this post.

As you gathered from the hastily posted video of the cake and singing, Emily Alejandra enjoyed every minute of being the center of attention on her birthday.  She was passed from person to person, stuffed herself on pancakes, was probably snuk some chocolate or whipped cream when I wasn't looking, discovered magnets on our outdoor fridge, and was given many rides on her new "motorcycle".  She didn't fuss once, never even got slightly crabby until the very end when 9:30pm rolled around and her bed began calling.  I was amazed.

The spiffed up garage turned out to be the perfect place for the pary.

I am not much of a birthday celebrator.  For me, my birthday is just another day.  I don't really mind much if we do anything special to celebrate it or not.  I couldn't care less about presents, either.  So when in the weeks leading up to November 4th I was contemplating the reality of a real birthday party, I was not too thrilled.  Angelines tends to be like me on the celebration front, so niether of us was particularly keen on putting together a big celebration.  Thinking about doing this yearly for at least 18 years seemed daunting at best.

I am pleased to say, however, that the party was a complete success and much to my surprise I enjoyed myself immensely.  There was a lot of work involved, mainly cleaning since we had to prepare our garage for the guests...but we kept the actual party low-key.  Only our closest friends and neighbors came, and of course the family was all present.  We served pancakes, and chocolate chip cookies as well as cake; and as the afternoon wore on there was cerveza, cheese, chorizo and lomo to snack on.  Emily was showered with gifts, many new clothing articles as well as a few toys.

The mom's were duly impressed by the decorrating. ;)

It turns out, my child's birthday is much more important (and fun) to me than my own.  You could say that giving birth has given me a whole new perspective on birthdays.  It was a day I was proud of and something I wanted to share with everyone. The Friday following her party was the monthly meeting for our breast-feeding support group.  I couldn't help dirtying the kitchen once more to make a cake to share with all the wonderful moms who have accompanied me throughout this first year.  So rather than a birthDAY celebration, we had more of a birthWEEK celebration. :)


Being a key player in Emily's being born probably has everything to do with my new-found love of birthdays, I suppose.  We are just passive actors on our own birthdays, but for a parent, a birthday marks a very important, life-changing anniversary.  And of course, a mother's role is 100% active.  It is an amazing thing to look back over a year and think about how after just 15 hours of labour, my world was completely turned upside down, inside out and backwards in the most beautiful way possible.  And that, certainly is cause for celebration!