Giving kisses

Every time Oliver reaches a new milestone, I think "this is my favorite stage."  Cooing, social smiling, giggling, holding the bottle by himself, rolling, sitting, standing, walking. 

They are all great, but my favorite, my absolute super most favorite is giving kisses.

At first it was open-mouthed and a little wet.  He would basically just plant is sticky little mouth on my face.  But now he puckers.  He looks a me with pursed lips and leans in.  He gives hugs too!

See, look.

Ok, so that picture is funny.  And he doesn't exactly look like he's in to kissing Mama, but he does. 

Really.  I swear.



His first boo-boo

I am actually surprised we made it as long as we did before Oliver got his first real boo-boo.  His chin met the concrete steps at daycare. 

He seems to have forgotten about it already, and he won't slow down enough for me to take a picture.



Birthday Cake

To sum up the whole experience...he.hated.it.

I was so prepared for the money shot. 

The baby, covered in frosting and cake goo.

Smiling like he knew he was getting away with something, the glimmer in his eyes foreshadowing the post-suger-high-meltdown to come.

I had my camera, of course.

I had 1 vinyl tablecloth, 1 diaper-clad one-year-old, one 6" square cake that I made myself, and sprinkles.

We had already opened presents.  When I set him down he looked at me, looked at the cake, looked back at me, and smiled. 

He tore into the cake.  He ripped the first layer of frosting off so fast that I started to feel bad.  I think he thought there was a present in there, too.

Instead, it was more of the same, which he didn't care for the feeling of.  Squishy, sticky, crummy hands?

No, thank you.

At this point, he still hadn't tasted it. 

He didn't get that the cake was food. I tried to show him that he could eat it.  Nom nom nom...cake.  He looked at me, his big brown eyes saying "I'm going to trust you, mama."

And he tried a bite.

He promptly spit it out and shuddered.  We all laughed at him, of course.  At which point he decided he'd had enough.

I'm outta here.

About a second after I took this picture he put his hands down to stand up, they slipped because of all the frosting and he landed his knee and foot in the cake.

Its his party, he can cry if he wants to.

I took him upstairs to shower off while Papa removed the offending cake. 



The birthday loot

Oliver, I am sorry for the lack of updates.  Someday when you read this you will notice the gap, but it is not because I didn't have anything interesting to write about, on the contrary, you've kept Papa and I extremely busy.

For the record, I started a new job, then Papa got sick with viral meningitis and had to be hospitalized but he's all better now.

Now on to birthday post part 2.

Oliver definately liked the opening-the-presents-thing a lot more than he liked the smashing-and-eating-the-cake-thing.

Here is a monkey that he got from Grandma Betsy. 

It is soft, so naturally he likes it!

He got something soft from Grandma Sherri too, here is is taking it for a test run.  Or a test cuddle.

Yep.  That'll do!

He also got this microphone, which he loves! 

It makes eleventy-bajillion-and-one different sounds.  Thanks. Grandma.

Here is the fire truck he got from Auntie.  If you haven't watched him open it yet, you should, it is worth every second.  Especially the grin at the end.

He got some other great gifts as well, from his friend Henry and my friend Katie.  Overall it was a good day.  Stay tuned for the cake reveal!

Oliver opens presents.