It is official! On January 13th, 2010 at 1:04 in the afternoon, Jackson Cooper turned one year old! Mommy and Daddy can hardly believe a full year has passed, but time flies when you’re sleep deprived and having fun. The morning of Jack’s birthday, he woke up early enough for Daddy to see him before he had to go to work. Daddy greeted him with a big smile while singing Happy Birthday. Jack was all smiles, but unfortunately, despite the day being all about him, Little Man was more than a little grumpy. This grumpiness was a bit of a carryover from the previous day.
Jack had been spending most of his play time in the living room while Mommy and Daddy prepared his playroom for him. A newly baby proofed and organized playroom with a few new toys was our birthday present to baby-man. As a result, Jack had been relegated to the living room play yard and a few of his favorite toys from Christmas for a little while as Mommy worked to get the room in tip top shape. With the Jack’s birthday the very next day, I was spending a great deal of time in and out of his playroom which translated into a great deal of time in and out of Jack’s sight. Due in part to his recent grumpy mood and to his recent desire to know where Mommy is at all times, this posed a bit of a problem resulting in Jack Jack not wanting to be in play yard without Mommy.
Fortunately, even in the face of an ever growing “To Do” list, one of Mommy’s favorite activities is sitting and playing her little boy. So, I would climb into the play yard and Jack and I would play any sort of game he was in the mood for, whether it be peek-a-boo or just putting blocks into baskets, Jack was thrilled that Mommy was sitting inside the “baby jail”. Eventually Jack would lose interest in whatever game we were playing and wander off to play by himself. It would be in these moments that I would announce nonchalantly that Mommy is going to be in the next room for a few minutes, but I’ll be back. So, in 5-10 minute increments, Mommy organized the playroom. This was easier and more fun once Daddy was able to assemble the toy bins and sorter we purchased.
Another reason for some of Jack’s grumpiness was that he was still recovering from his cold from the previous week as well as a rather irregular weekend. In preparation for the big Birthday bash, Mommy and Daddy took a trip with Jack to Zurchers to pick up some party supplies. Zurchers was a veritable birthday Mecca. You name the party theme and they had an aisle with its accompanying decorations. From luaus to safaris, this place was chalked full of themed balloons, streamers, banners, plates, napkins, and even life size cardboard cutouts. Mommy and Daddy walked up and down the aisles thinking about which party theme would be just right for a Little Man’s first birthday. At first we considered having a safari themed party, but upon seeing the “First Birthday” section, we ultimately decided that was the best way to go. Jack has tons of birthdays and birthday parties to look forward to in the future and we were sure that more than a few would involve animals, but this was the only birthday that could claim to be the first. So, we let Jack pick which items he wanted, Mommy and Daddy grabbed an “I’m 1 today!” ribbon for Jack to wear during his party and then we were off to get Jack home in time for a nap.
Despite our best efforts, more shopping for the party was still needed come Sunday afternoon. Mommy was planning on making the birthday cupcakes, but the appetizers we were going to be serving needed to be store bought. Between Mommy and Daddy there is only so much energy and time and neither of us had enough of either to hand make hours ‘devours. This was a job for . . . COSTCO! So, like a heard of dirty turtles, we were off to Costco. After much debate, we decided on mini quiches and wide array of Mexican cantina appetizers. All were easily baked in the oven and capable of being kept warm on our warming tray that Daddy bought for Thanksgiving. Jack was quite the little sport. He maintained a happy disposition the entire shopping trip. In fact, lately, when he is put in a shopping cart, he begins to bounce with excitement and starts to smile from ear to ear as he gazes at all of the interesting sites the world outside has to offer. He was even content to eat a few Cheerios and play with his container of bits while Mommy and Daddy grabbed a quick bite to eat before we left Costco.
So, with a house to make ready for company, decorations to hangs, cupcakes to bake and decorate, a playroom to finish, and the rest of the everyday items consistently on Mommy’s “To Do” list to accomplish, by Monday night Mommy was in full mission mode. To ensure that things would run smoothly the day of the party (this phrase makes Mommy laugh in retrospect), I did a practice run with the cupcakes. Mommy and Daddy decided it would be best if the first birthday cake was made with as healthy of ingredients as possible and made at home so there would be no worries about what was actually in the cake or how much. An article in the November 2009 Parents magazine listed a few cupcake recipes that were healthy and cute. This article also included a recipe for Banana Chocolate Monkey-Face cupcakes. This was the recipe we decided on. The cupcakes themselves were made with real bananas and the recipe called for mini chocolate chips, but in an effort to keep things simple, it was decided that Jack’s cupcake wouldn’t have any chocolate chips. So, when the batter hit the mixing bowl, there would be one batch of cupcakes with chocolate chips and one without. However, when the cupcakes emerged from the oven Mommy realized something went wrong. Most of the cupcakes had collapsed in on themselves. I didn’t worry too much. I assumed I would have enough time the next day to make another batch and chalked the demise of the cupcakes, after careful analysis and tasting by Daddy, to overfull cupcake cups.
To begin with, Mommy felt a little rushed, but felt there was still plenty of time for all to be accomplished. Prior to his first nap, Jack Jack was in a good mood with only little bursts of grumpiness here and there. He spent the morning attending to his own kitchen while Mommy prepped the big kitchen for cupcakes.
Again, thinking Jack was in a good mood and there was plenty of time before the 6 o’clock party, during Jack’s morning nap, Mommy took the time to eat breakfast and relax, both things I was unable to do the year prior. As it would turn out, between Jack’s mood swings and above average diaper changes, it took a little over 5 hours to complete a 20 minute cupcake recipe. These cupcakes, which would later be named, Kamikaze Cupcakes because of their eagerness to self destruct, would total 36 with only 13 turning out to look like cupcakes. I didn’t let this get me down though. It was Jack’s birthday during his lunch, right at 1:04 PM, Mommy and Daddy (via speaker phone) sang Happy Birthday to our little boy.
During lunch time, while Jack was enjoying his Cheerios and juice, Mommy decked the place out in party decorations. If Jack had been grumpy before you wouldn’t have known it to look at his face upon seeing streamers hanging from the ceiling and multicolored centerpieces announcing a first birthday.
However, as his afternoon nap time approached, Jack grew more and more cranky. So after a little bit of playing, a bottle, and story time, Jack went to sleep and Mommy went back to work. Seeing my deflating cupcakes Mommy must admit I began to feel a little deflated myself, but I remembered something Daddy told me when I was pregnant with Jack Jack. I had a mini meltdown over 3 ruined batches of Snickerdoodle cookies and all I could think of was “how can I be a good Mommy if I can’t bake cookies?”
Daddy said that just me wanting to be able to be a good Mommy and putting in the effort to make the cookies was what made me a good Mommy. At the end of the day, not everyone can be Martha Stewart and quite frankly we’re all blessed that’s the case. So, I told Daddy to pick up a “just in case” replacement cake on his way home and I began to decorate my remaining 13 monkey cupcakes. Fortunately, with a little help from Daddy when he arrived home, they turned out just right.
The party wasn’t set to start until 6:00 PM, but Oma showed up a little early so she could get a little bit of one on one time with the Birthday Boy. This worked out really well because Mommy and Daddy were running around like chickens attempting to get everything ready for the rest of the guests. Aunt Ali and Cousin Carson weren’t able to attend because Carson has a pretty bad cold, but JaNae and Kiera were more than happy to attend as was Eileen. However, in the mean time, Jack showed Oma his cruising skills as his donned his “It’s Fun to Be 1″ hat and played Babaloo on our recycling can.
For his birthday dinner, before his guests arrived, Jack ate some spinach quiche. This quickly became a favorite. It had all of his favorite foods, egg, cheese, bread, and we snuck some veggies in there for good measure. After dinner, Jack changed into his birthday outfit. It was a brown and green hooded sweatshirt with monkeys all over it and the pants had a monkey on the butt. This outfit was more than appropriate as it matches his birthday cupcakes and gave us the opportunity to call him “monkey butt” for the evening.
Oma wasn’t able to stay very long as she wasn’t feeling very well, but once the other guests arrived it was time to party down! Kiera was very excited to see “Baby Jack”. She walked up to him and quietly in a higher pitched voice than usual began to say “Hi little guy. Hi Baby Jack” and pat him on the shoulder and arm. It was really too cute for words.
Of course it wouldn’t be a visit from JaNae and Kiera without a more than generous outpouring of toys. Jack certainly doesn’t mind being the keeper of Kiera’s toys until she has a little brother or sister just like Kiera doesn’t mind showing Jack how all of her fun toys work. That ended up being a two way street as Jack was more than happy to show Kiera how his toys worked.
Eventually it was time for presents and cake. Mommy helped Jack open up his presents, JaNae took photos, and Daddy recorded the entire event. Needless to say, Jack’s first birthday was well documented.
Jack received some very cute clothes from Oma, Grandpa, and JaNae and Kiera while Eileen didn’t disappoint with a fantastically fun movie for us to watch as a family Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Eileen always has impeccable taste when it comes to fun family flicks.
Then it was finally time to unveil the playroom that Mommy and Daddy had been working on for over a week. Mommy and Daddy had considered wrapping the individual items, like the toy organizer, the bouncing zebra, and the musical table, but as time ran short we thought it best to just shut the door and do a grandiose “Voila!” unveiling. He was more than a little excited, but we weren’t sure if it was because of the all the changes in the playroom or because he finally had access to his much missed baby den. Regardless, he was all about the play time upon being set loose on the room.
This room is always evolving to meet Jack’s ever changing needs. One of the most noticeable changes is the relocation of the floor mat to the wall. Mommy thought it would fun to put on the wall to offer up color, but also make the floor a little easier for Jack to walk on.
Daddy added the stuffed animal chain so Jack can have access to all of his stuffed animals for play. We added the toy organizer to sort all of his little items. His exer-saucer has officially been converted into a useable walk-around activity table and we added the zebra and the musical table. 
Jack loved the table that Kiera let him borrow so much we had to get him one focused on music and colors also. The Zebra was something that Mommy found that looked like a lot of fun for baby man. He loved his jumper-roo and exer-saucer so much I thought he would like something else he could jump up and down on.
After a little bit of time to play, it was time for Jack’s birthday cake. So, we all headed into the kitchen where Jack had his very own, specially made for Jack, banana and chocolate monkey cupcake, along with a cake that Daddy picked up at the grocery store in case all of the cupcakes turned into Kamikaze Cupcakes. It was only a generic white cake so Mommy had to pipe “Happy Birthday Jack” on the top of the cake. If I had any notions of ever being a cake decorator, this simple task changed my mind. With the cupcakes actually being very yummy, Daddy took the large cake to his office for his coworkers to eat. So, it worked out all the way around.
Jack certainly knew it was time for something to happen and he was more than ready to get the show on the road. So, we put him in his high chair (we had removed it’s cover just in case he decided to go crazy with the cake) and we pinned on his birthday boy ribbon.
Mommy and Daddy also took this opportunity to get a quick family photo taken. With just the three of us, sometimes it’s tough to get a picture without the set and dash camera timer. We’re always happy when the three of us can make into the frame together.
The evening finally culminated in the much anticipated lighting of the first birthday candle, the singing of Happy Birthday, and promptly followed by Mommy blowing it out before Jack put it out with his finger.
By this point in the day, Mommy was thoroughly exhausted, although it didn’t even compare to how tired I was the day my darling little boy was born or how tired I would be for the next few months. However, in thinking back to the day he was born Daddy and I had no idea what was in store for us. We couldn’t even begin to fathom what the next 365 days would hold. From the toll the sleepless nights would take on us physically and emotionally to the overwhelming love and joy we felt with each passing day as our little Blurpy the Turtle grew and changed before our very eyes. No one could have prepared us for the swelling of our hearts. No words can express how much life changes and no words can describe the endless depths of emotions that come with having such a precious little person in your life. This year’s journey, ending with a candle on a cake, seems like such a simple way to celebrate something so truly amazing and anything, but simple. However, as Daddy and I have learned over the course of the past year, it’s the simple little moments, like a flash of a smile or giggle, or a candle on a cake that are our little rewards for a job well done and life well lived. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many cupcakes deflate on you, as long as you try. After all, you only need one cupcake any how.
