This weekend was exciting because we got to celebrate Riley’s first birthday.
It’s weird how I always assumed that Abby would grow up. I have always looked forward to the day when she was older and I could really do things with her. And as far as her progress goes, she’s coming along. But I’ve never relaly thought about Riley growing up, so this milestone is a strange kind of shock.
Obviously, I see him growing. My boy is huge! I think he’s going to slow down growing, though, since his appetite has calmed down a bit lately. But he’s doing all kinds of things that a one-year-old should be doing.
Riley can take a step voluntarily on his own. No, he can’t walk yet, even though we all swore that he’d be doing it at the end of August. What he does is more like a controlled fall toward something else he can hold onto. The gap between things is getting wider, though, as he will occasionally add a step in there. I’m sure if we encourage him to try more often, he’ll be running around the house all too soon.
Yesterday was kind of neat, because Riley was in an unusually good mood. I’m glad that he would have a happy birthday. We played around in the livingroom - I chased him a bit with the stuffed rubber dinosaur he likes, and threw him up onto the couch a few times, which always makes him giggle. I fed him a bottle and we both took a nap on the livingroom couch before Mom and Nana arrived.
Before dinner, we opened his presents. At this age, kids mostly sit and wonder why, after you’ve told them time and again, “Don’t rip that thing!”, you would purposefully tell them to rip the paper off of something. That was Riley’s reaction to unwrapping, as he sat and watched mostly Abby tearing the paper off of his gifts. He got a tractor with a trailer full of farm animals, a firetruck, a baby laptop toy that has lots of sounds, a plan that rolls when you push the top down and a toy crab that works generally the same way. He really liked the toys.
He didn’t eat much for dinner. Abby was busy getting everyone to try on the single remaining birthday cone-hat from one of her birthday parties. We had salmon and scallops that Berta made, which were good. And afterward, we had cake.
Riley really likes lemons. It’s weird how when Abby was little she used to like lemons, too. She would suck on them and make a sour face and then suck on them again. Riley just sucks on the lemons. So Berta made a lemon cake with fluffy white icing.
Riley’s got this thing with utensils. He likes to hold them. He likes to stick them in his mouth. He still eats with his other hand. So after a while of trying to explain the concept of poking his food with the fork, he decided to ignore me and take fistfuls of lemon cake. He enjoyed it.
After that, we played in the living room some more, and we put Dumbo on the TV, which, of course, starts out with the birthday of Dumbo. Have we dont this before? Was this on purpose? Berta suggested the movie, so maybe it was.
Anyway, about that time Mom and Nana left and we called it a night.
I wonder what Riley will be like next year. Maybe his currently endless baby babble will have turned into something intelligible by then. It’s really frustrating not knowing what he’s trying to say or ask. I’m sure it is for him, too.
