A Pumpkin's First Birthday

One year ago right now I was sitting on my big exercise ball, doing circles like I learned in lamaze class. Rick was talking to his mom and we were trying to decide if she shouldn’t come up the next weekend because we were probably going to be induced on Wednesday morning and wouldn’t be discharged until Friday morning at the earliest. Little did we know, our little “Fred” (which is what my nephew Shane said we should call the baby) was on his/her way out. I ended up going into real labor a few hours later, and headed to the hospital at 4am on November 6, 2006.

I am freakish about remembering dates & times, and am not looking forward to the rest of forever going “one year ago right now I was in labor…one year ago today Mallory had her first bath…five years ago this weekend Rick left us for his first away game trip” blah, blah, blah. Just a fair warning – don’t ever bet me on a date I remembered. I earned myself a free night at Friday’s because someone doubted me. :-)

Anyway, back to the birthday celebration!! We had a small gathering with family and a few of Mallory’s little friends yesterday. She got a ginormous pile of presents – none of which she helped unwrap. Her cousin Lauren did the unwrapping but then wouldn’t let Mallory have the toy that she unwrapped, which caused some unhappy squeals from both Mallory & Lauren and a little tug-of-war action.

Mallory got some great toys from her friends, a wagon from Grandpa, a giggle & shake Elmo armchair from Papa & Nina and a big Fisher-Price learning kitchen thing from Gigi. Grandma made her a super-soft cuddly blanket and a cute little purse (that she has already taken to carrying around the house…). There were some new books in the loot, including one that Rick picked out just for her – Six by Seuss – a big hardcover collection of six Dr. Seuss stories. If you’ve met my husband, he isn’t one to shop and doesn’t like to spend money. Mallory has a bajillion books, including some little Dr. Seuss books, but Rick wanted this book for the Grinch story. That is what Mallory heard before bed last night and I’m guessing she’ll hear it a lot more in the next 8 weeks before Christmas.

And the moment you’ve all been waiting for….the CAKE! This sort of didn’t work like I thought it would. I expected us to light the candle, sing Happy Birthday, Mallory would be happy, and I would be crying tears of joy & disbelief that my baby isn’t a baby anymore. But what really happened was we lit the candle, started singing Happy Birthday…and Mallory freaked out. Like trying to climb out of her booster seat freaked out. This distracted me so I didn’t cry which was good. Once the song ended, and Lauren helped blow out the candle, the cake was ON. Mallory attacked with gusto and enjoyed it thoroughly.

top l: Bring on the cake!!; top r: freaking out
bottom l: hmmmm….frosting?; bottom r: YUM!!!

What a year. Amazingly it’s been easier than I thought it would be. There have been some hard times ~ dealing with Rick’s insane work schedule is a lot harder with a baby & a clingy, ignored dog. But for the most part Mallory has been a pretty easy & happy baby and I still can’t believe she’s mine. Here’s to hoping that there is no truth to the myth that if your first one is easy, the second one is tough.

Our biggest lesson learned from the past 365 days? That we are surrounded by wonderful family and friends who love our dear sweet baby almost as much as we do.

Tomorrow is Mallory’s actual birthday. I anticipate lots of tears. Oops, there they start.

Good night.