Happy Birthday Baby

Hyrum is 12 months old! He had a fun birthday overall, thanks to Mama's diligent and creative planning... though several things did NOT go according to plan. As far as Hy was concerned, the balloons and the presents were a hit, as was playing outside for the very first time. Joy describes it thus: "He discovered rocks ... and he splashed in a puddle as he lay on his side in it. He also followed a cat into a neighbor's yard." That will be in another post.

Here he is playing with two punchy balloons at once.


We had planned to give him a really fun morning. We set his food in front of him, including a favorite at Pop and Grandma's (mac and cheese), chocolate pudding, and his birthday cupcake. I did eventually convince him to take two bites of the cupcake. Otherwise, he was very dismayed by the change in schedule and menu. He smooshed up the cupcake and let it fall to the floor. We finally gave in and gave him green beans and yogurt, "two normal staples of his daily diet"

Pick your favorite caption:
~Dude, what are they feeding me here?~
~Hunh, I've sure got them fooled! They think I like vegetables~
~They tell me I'll like this stuff someday. I think they're full of ... chocolate pudding.~
~Don't they know this stuff will kill them? I'm not touching it. Well, okay, I'm touching it, but not with my tongue.~

"I think he was trying to put it back" It sure looked that way. He got some on his hand, looked at it "like, what happened??" and then he put it back in and tried to press the pudding off. He repeated it several times "to no effect!" "He didn't even need his clothes off cause he didn't get it on his clothes, or even his face! He didn't even rub it on his face."

Then we thought we be inspired by the birthday party some friends of ours threw for their kids and give him some time to be DIRTY. We put him in the tub with a container full of chocolate pudding. He looked around, standing in the tub, shivered, and wondered what was going on. I showed him that he could smear the pudding on the tub. He looked at me as if I were a madman. So I took some pudding and smeared it on his belly and gave his face a little warpaint.

That's when he finally broke down and cried. "He commenced to wail." Hokay, abandon ship! We cleaned the baby and got him into normal, dry clothes and let him play around by himself for a bit to restore equilibrium, "which he enjoyed a lot better."

We hid one present under a couple of blankets, which intrigued him. He lifted one blanket, then dropped it and went to his regular toys. We finally convinced the blankets would be fun, and unveiled THIS: a Little People car center thingy. He was pretty interested. When I sent one of the cars down the chute and it spun off into the kitchen, Hyrum opened his mouth and gave a decisive nod of his head that came right out of California: Cool! He enjoyed the rest of his morning while I went to work.

After work, we played a game with him that turned out to be more roller coaster than we intended: open the presents! We'd hand him a present, like this (~16-18 year old) keyboard I've been lugging around with me from our Nintendo days. His first reaction is delight. He plays with it enthusiastically. Then we take it away from him because he does need to get to his other presents and still get to bed sometime today, right? This he does not like. But then he has a new present for us to open for him. And he likes what he sees. Lather, rinse, repeat.


His other two big gifts from us were a $20 laptop that plays alphabet games and a free hippo walker/scooter/toy that we rescued from the Nursery junk pile and fixed. One of the cool things about the hippo is that the mouth moves up and down as it walks and it devours the things it runs across - the items are scooped up into its belly by a brush. I fondly remember using it in Nursery to teach Calvin about Jonah and the whale.

Hy also got his Very Own copy of the Book of Mormon because he really does love playing with the BoM and the hymnal. Maybe for Christmas we'll get him a hymnal. Pop and Gamma sent him some Disney clothes (a sweater, a onesie, and a bib) and the New Testament children's picture storybook. Gamma also crocheted Hy and me a couple delightful Leprechaun hats.