Birthday Girl

We celebrated Phaedra's first birthday this week. The actual day of her birthday was the day the pears were ripe, so we were over at Grandma's house canning pears. I had wanted to make cupcakes, but I ran out of time. Grant picked some up at the store. Phaedra enjoyed her first chocolate cupcake. We had gifts for her, but we decided to wait until Friday when Grant had the day off and we would have more time to celebrate as a family without delaying bed time.

This picture shows Phaedra's wave. She loves to wave at people everywhere we go. She was scooting across the floor, pushing the toy in front of her, and I said, "See ya later, Phae." She stopped and turned to wave at me. She seems to recognize when people are saying goodbye (even if people don't actually say "bye"), and she starts waving. She gets a lot of attention with her wave. If she's waving at someone who isn't waving back, she'll point at them, wave, point at them, wave, so she makes it very clear that they are the one she wants to wave back.

Phaedra needed a little help with the concept of opening presents. I'm sure next time around, she'll have it all figured out. Eleanor helped me choose a gift for Phaedra from her. She really struggled, telling me which toy she wanted to give to Phae and then saying, "But I want it for me." She has needed many reminders that they are Phaedra's toys, and she shouldn't put them where Phaedra can't reach. It has been very difficult for her to have it be Phaedra's birthday before hers when she has been excited to have a birthday for so long.

I made mini cupcakes, and we sang happy birthday to Phaedra. Grant and Eleanor tried to show her how to blow out the candle. Eleanor ended up having to blow it out for her. We also put a candle in Eleanor's cupcake for her to blow out just for fun. This time, we gave Phaedra some ice cream. I got cookie dough ice cream, the first kind of ice cream Phaedra ever got to taste (when we were in Utah). She was trying so hard to manage the spoon, but I ended up spoon feeding some to her to help her out. When she was down to just a little puddle in her bowl, Grant took the bowl to start cleaning her off. Apparently, she wasn't ready to give it up, and she bawled, so offended by what her daddy had done. She is very fond of ice cream.

Reading her new story before bed. Harry the Dirty Dog has been a favorite of Eleanor's from her grandparents' house. Eleanor was eager to read it to Phaedra after she opened it.