2nd Birthday Party

For Cedric's 2nd birthday we borrowed an inflatable bounce house from friends and hosted family and friends for a casual lunch. Cedric had a great time! The bounce house kept the children (ages 2 - 27) entertained the whole afternoon. I will not post pictures of grown-ups or list the names of who got in to "test" it, but you know who you are.


Cedric enjoyed having company for lunch and didn't shed a tear when we sang "happy birthday" or when everyone clapped. There was one nervous moment when I told him he could blow out the candle and he tried to pinch the flame, but thankfully a five year old was standing at the ready to "help" just in case.


Yes, that is an entire cake in front of him. Yes, he does have a hot dog in the other hand. Just wait until you see the next picture...

Yep, he is now eating a cupcake. For the record though he did not eat an entire cake plus a cupcake. He did eat the hot dog though.

The cake in the pictures was *tested* that morning and found to be, well how should I say this ... bleck. The morning of the party I made a German-chocolate cake for the party guests to enjoy. You just can't serve bad cake at a birthday party, right?

Surprisingly, Cedric did not enjoy opening his presents. It seemed like it was a great annoyance to him that we would all conspire together to wrap toys making it difficult to play with. Hopefully by Christmas he will not need coaxing to open gifts or offer alternative activities, like going outside to bounce, which is what he did the whole time we opened gifts.

In other news, Cedric has only gained 3-4oz since his 1 year well-baby visit! He also grown 3 inches. I was shocked about the weight gain, or lack of it, but his pediatrican pointed out that now he is in the 65th percentile for weight instead of the 95th. I remember that weight percentiles are not SATs and my job is not to maintain him at the 95th percentile for weight his whole life. Its actually better if he is average in this case. I felt much better after this realization.

Happy Birthday baby!

Cedric's Happy Day!

Two years ago today I waddled down a hall at Missouri Baptist Hospital, hopped (in my imagination it was quite gracefull) onto an operating table and in what seemed like no time, my baby boy was out of my tummy in my arms. I'll never forget Dr Maupin's caliber remark, "OMG, he looks like he's 2 months old! Oh and he's so cute." Oh Dr Maupin, I will forever love you for your recognition of my son's beauty and your adeptness with a stitching needle. Here we are with Cedric on his Birth Day. Yes we look so happy its almost cheesey but deep down we're thinking "What have we gotten ourselves into?"



As it turns out, we've gotten ourselves into experiencing the kind of love you can have for a person its almost painful and the kind of joy you can have that's so powerful it makes you tear up.

We gave him a bike for his birthday and he loves it. We took turns pushing him around the house singing "Happy Birthday" to him as he requested, which was often. Later when I was making dinner, I could hear him singing to himself while sitting on his bike. He couldn't quite say happy birthday, it came out as "happy day Cedric." My heart just melted...

Here he is on his bike.




Saturday is his proper birthday party and I promise when I post about that I'll leave out the parental gushiness and talk about Cedric's growth and development.