Where the hell did the last year go?

Today we celebrated the first birthday of The Cutest Baby in the Whole World (and I'm not biased in any way because he's not mine).

Remember this face?

I conveniently forgot my camera and thus have to recycle old photos. Alex is pictured here at around 9 months. Be assured, his head is still quite large and not much else has changed.

Anyhow, this little ball of cuteness celebrated 12 months of sleeping, eating, and pooping today. I was a little trepidacious about going to the party, since I knew there would be children in attendance and I'm pretty particular about the children I'm willing to hang out with. Specifically I'm not a big fan of the ones with the soft spot on their heads. Just creeps me out to think I could accidentally slip and poke my thumb into their white matter.

I solved this problem by going straight for the beer. Doesn't really help with my motor skills, but typically after a few the kids learn to keep their distance from me.

Anywho, there were a number of the usuals and some newbs in attendance, and the kids were all acceptable ages (read: tying their own shoes and wiping their own butts). Most of our time was spent eating, as with most family events, and the cake was completely acceptable and totally fattening (thank you Publix). They even got a separate cake for the B-day boy, and apparently its a 'tradition' to publicly ridicule watch the child smash the cake with his hands and smear it all over his face. I was reminded of Anthropology courses where tribal children fulfil rites of passages by killing their first lion and smearing themselves with blood....except this was yellow cake and green butter cream frosting. But the concept's pretty similar.

Alex, being daddy's boy, did not play the part. This kid's showing his OCD very early in life, getting grumpy and cranky when he realized that his hands were dirty. The dog ended up damaging that cake better than the kid. In tribal terms I think that means he won't have lots of girlfriends. At least we know he won't end up like Pigpen.

By far the most impressive part of the party was the Unveiling of The Gifts. First birthdays are the new Sweet Sixteen! This kid raked in toys of all sorts, cute little outfits, even golf clubs (and yes, they were metal and will inevitably break a window). I was especially interested in the toys that involved blinking lights with music and singing and strange voices. I'm pretty sure those are the root of the ADD problem in America.

When I was a kid, we played with legos and paper and wooden popsicle sticks. Stuff that required imagination, creative thinking, and glue. My parents took this theory a step futher and trumped my 5-mile-walk-uphill-in-the-snow story with their 20-mile-walk-through-ice-capped-mountains story by exclaiming they never even had TV growing up.

(How the hell did they keep up with important current events like what's going on with Brit Brit or who got kicked off this week on American Idol?)

I'm thinking about getting our little friend Alex a script for Ritalin on his second birthday. You have to be proactive with these things.

After playing with all of his toys (me) and eating his cake (me and the dog), my little friend Alex was completely tuckered out and made his way to bed. As we left my hands lingered over the Leap Frog caterpillar thing that sounded out letters to enhance reading skills. I liked how it said F-U-C-ooo, that tickles!-K.

(You think I'm joking? Go to Target right now and try it yourself. Seriously. GO.)

(And I soooo want to know what the other parents faces in that aisle look like when you do it.)

(By the way: do not pull the string. No matter how sultry tempting they make it sound by saying "Pull My String", just don't do it. Trust me.)

Altogether a nice afternoon, although by no means did it inspire me to run out and get a kid rightnowthisminute.

But then again, tick tock. Tick Freakin Tock.