Happy Birthday Ambrose!

Happy Birthday Ambrose!

My foray into fondant; I made it from a recipe I got here:

http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Rolled-Marshmallow-Fondant

 Because it is such a great book (and Ambrose likes to poke his fingers through the holes in the fruits) and because when Ambrose was wigglin' round inside me, he made me a Very Hungry Caterpillar and now he is a Very Hungry Caterpillar too, I decided to theme the party on that marvelous work by Eric Carle.

On Saturday, he at through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice cream cone, one pickle . . . 

The Beautiful Butterfly as a clothespin-tissue paper refrigerator magnet.  Party favors for the little kids and grown-ups.  (As a side note, my unbelievable husband stayed up with me till one in the morning watercolor-ing all those wings.  I do not deserve this man.)

Party time!  Nice day on the patio.

Babies everywhere!  The other two are the children of two of the other girls in my Centering Pregnancy group at the Lisa Ross Birth and Women's Center.

I mean, really?  Can he get any cuter?

Give.  Me.  That.

Om-nom-nom-nom!

That's avocado frosting and banana oat cake.  Recipes here:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/avocado-icing/  http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/healthy-first-birthday-cake-recipes.html

That's delicious.

 I made "hand kites" from napkin rings varnished with olive oil and beeswax.  I got the idea on etsy.com and the process from another blog: http://gsfool.blogspot.com/2011/08/ribbon-hand-kite-tutorial.html

Loves playing with his Grandpa!  I think it was a successful party.  We also passed around a book for everyone to write to Ambrose about his first year.  And I'm already excited about what I will do next year!  What an awesome day!

In the year I have known you

One year ago today I was holding my two-day-old son and wondering simultaneously how I ever got so lucky and how I was going to make it through the night.  He had so many tiny perfect parts; how was I ever going to keep track of them?  And those were only the parts I could see.  He had tiny lungs and liver and spine and how could I go to sleep unsure he would keep breathing while he slept?

I have forgotten now how long it took me to stop going into his room every 5 minutes while he napped, to convince myself his chest rose and fell, as always.

This year Ambrose learned to swallow pureed food, then soft whole food.  In fact, this year he learned how to mush up and swallow pretty much anything we give him.  He learned how to roll from his back to his front.  He learned how to sit halfway up, propped on one arm, unsure where to go from there.  He rose to hands and knees and rocked, and crawled.  How his "hungry" sounds have changed and changed again, but oh how he has never failed to let me know he is hungry.  He can throw things now.  He can pick up a pea, a dust bunny, a crumb.  He understands the things I say.  He knows where his mouth is, and his nose and his eyes, and will move these body parts accordingly when I inquire about their location.

"Ambrose, where's your nose?"
*snnffff snffff snnnff*
"Where's your eyes?"
*blink squint blink*

And so on.  If I ask him, "Where's your sock?" he grabs his foot.  If I ask, "What does a police car say?" he makes a funny little siren noise that is like melted butter poured over my heart every time.

He smiled at me for the first time back at week 5, then he laughed at me, and now he talks to me.  "Mama," he looks at me and says.  "Bo," he explains as he points to the birds out the window.  "Mo," he demands, folding and unfolding his little hands impatiently.

His once unfocused and strangely blue-smoke eyes are tack-sharp and sky-bright and have such intelligence behind them, such person-ness.  He has three times the repertoire of facial expressions that I do, I feel.  He's got character.  He was two cells, and now he's got character.  He loves to make me laugh, too. 

Today we threw him a party.  I had no idea the drive I would find within me to go completely overboard, doing things I'd never done before to have a party that Ambrose won't even remember.  I made FONDANT, for heaven's sake.  I varnished wood with beeswax.  I got 5 hours of sleep three nights in a row.

But I NEEDED to show everyone and Ambrose and myself how desperately I love this kiddo.  How enthralled I am with his growing and being and learning, how in love with his expanding existence I am, how I would find that fabled lever and move this planet for him.

I'll add a post of party pictures later because right now my photos aren't showing up when I browse for them.  All in all I think it was a good party.  The occasion has been marked; I am ready to move on.  For as lovely as all my memories are of the last twelve months, the next twelve months are so much more exciting.  Oh Ambrose, you are like Christmas every day of the year.  I can't wait to see you in the morning, to discover what year: 1, day: 3 has in store for you.  

a mug full of writing utensils, half of which don't work, on your cherry sideboard

Every day, Ambrose does something he has never done before.

I read once that maybe death is not one big thing but rather many small things, like someone wandering around your house taking things one by one until you just don't have anything left.  So you leave.

Ambrose has everything left.  Hardly has he discovered one thing than something else captures him.  He's spent the last 4 baths in a row playing with his bottle of shampoo and nothing else; he keeps finding something else interesting about it.

The Fountain of Youth is a fountain because fountains constantly renew themselves and always have more left.

Let us love like the young, explore like the young, create like the young.  Let us live like fountains, our houses in a pleasant clutter of kitchen utensils, half-finished paintings, stacks of records, books we want to read.  Let us look at something we see every day and see what we have never seen before.

What haven't we ever done before?  Snow skiing?  Cooking curried lentils?  Being genuinely kind to someone who was completely rude to us?  Biking to the store?  Volunteering at a Boys & Girls Club?  Attending a wine tasting?

Ambrose is only beginning to find some of the hundreds of thousands of things that will keep his fountain flowing.  Remember yours.  Find a few new ones.  Celebrate where others find theirs.

Thirst.