A few days ago, my little baby, Otto, the very reason I started writing these posts, turned one year old. It's still hard for me to believe. It really didn't feel like a whole year.
But it's not hard to believe that Otto is a year old when you look back at how much he has changed. Otto seems older every day. In fact, if you think about all of the thing's he has accomplished it's harder to believe that he's only been around for 12 months. Interestingly, his dad seems to have aged a lot more than a year since September 2011, as well.
Change seems to be the theme of parenthood. Occasionally it's dramatic, but more often it's just kind of a drift. It's a trend towards something that is always different then the day before, yet so gradual that you can never really pin point the exact instant of metamorphosis. The food is always getting a little more solid, the naps are always getting a little bit shorter, and the childproofing of the house is always a little less than it should be.
But it's not just the kid that changes. I see it in me. I see it in all my friends who have kids. We're getting more conservative. We talk more about yard work, or how much our joints hurt. We are caring more about things we never thought we would.
For example, I used to think the 1st year birthday party was quintessential example of western wastefulness. If only I had a time machine to invite younger Jeff to Otto's party.
My wife and I started talking about his party a month or two ago. As soon as it came up I knew something inside me had changed. I didn't hate the idea and I couldn't really sort out why.
Trisha wanted a theme. I suggested a dog theme. If you've read any of my previous posts you probably know we are dog people. We already had dog "stuff" around the house. My thought process was we would call that stuff decorations and that would be it. No big deal.
My wife delegated me to making invitations.
"Hmmm...invitations?" I thought, "Like for you, me, our parents...I could probably just call them."
My wife insisted that we have invitations for all of Otto's 'friends.'
"You mean Ralph?" I wisely kept to myself.
I agreed, since I'm sort of a hobby artist. In fact, looking back this may have been very strategic of my wife. Trisha knows I love to design stuff for print and I always go way overboard. To use a dated reference, I am the Tim Taylor of hobby graphic design. Trisha knew that, if for no other reason than to try and create the penultimate invitation, I would be on board for this party.
She was right, but it worked on a whole other level. To make this invitation I needed photos. From new born to 10 months old, I sat and looked at almost every photo/video we have of this little, pudgy, wonderful boy. I cried a lot (I'm sort of an emotional guy).
I relived him coming home from the hospital, his first laugh, when he learned to clap, his first Christmas, him sleeping on my chest while I studied, his first time at the family cabin, his first cold, his first time swimming in a pool, etc. This invitation (and by association, this party) became the culmination of the most wonderful, exhausting, impossible year of my life and a symbol of what this little human being meant to me, regardless of his understanding of it. It was and is completely irrational, but in that moment of photo induced nirvana I understood the stream of consciousness of every party mama. Sentimentality overcame any rational thought. I was in party mode...and I loved it.
I designed four different invitations. Then I went on to bunting banners with a different breed of dog on each flag. It was easy, I just googled each breed, clipped each dogs face, converted it to one-bit black and white, then imported them into a tracing program so I could reformat them into vectors, then exported them to a drawing program so I could edit the fine details, then printed them at staples on four different colours of card stock. Then it was as simple as cutting out each flag and attaching them to twine. Easy. The whole process realistically took me 15 hours.
That wasn't enough! I scoured iTunes for children's music that was actually enjoyable to listen to and burned CD's for all our guests. I designed labels for gift bags. I printed off a "Pin-the-Tail on the Ralphie" game. I caught myself before I had T-shirts printed.
My wife was simultaneously going even more crazy, sewing amazing cloth bunting, baking cookies and pretzel bones and Jell-o filled dog bowls and puppy chow and making all sorts of amazing decorations. It actually became a huge bonding point for us. It was our project. And we made a pretty amazing team. Maybe there's a market for planning one year old's canine-esque get-togethers?
The day of the party I actually had an overwhelming sense of embarrassment. I was seriously afraid of what our friends would think of our dog-themed party gone dog-themed circus. They were gracious. And there-in is the final perk of the first year birthday party. We saw friends. We had people in our house that we have neglected for the last year. We got to see their kids. It was really fun. I kind of wish we could do first year parties more often.
You're probably reading this and rolling your eyes. And that's ok, because I completely understand. But this party ended up being really, really great. I'm proud of my amazing son. I'm proud of my amazing family. I'm proud of what we accomplished in our first year as a family.
