Happy Birthday Eli
Today is the day the doctors projected as Eli's due date. Well, instead a year ago today we drove Eli home from the hospital.
Eli was born on July 16, 2004. He just celebrated his first birthday. It truly was a celebration.
A young child at church asked why do we even have a party for our first birthday since we won't ever remember it. It is true that is seems as though the first birthday is geared more to the adults then that actual child. You don't serve everyone baby food or mashed bananas. You don't only offer them milk to drink. You certainly are aloud to eat as much candy as you like and whenever you like. You aren't fed by someone else- you get the point by now. We don't plan the whole party to meet the 1 year olds needs, we plan it for the adults.
But really, as I have thought about it more, this actually makes sense. While yes, we are celebrating Eli and his life. I think we are also celebrating the fact that we made it through the first year of life. It is a huge accomplishment for the baby but also for the adults in its life. I think this is an accomplishment worth celebrating.
We certainly had a hard year to make it through. It was an accomplishment worth celebrating together.
I was sitting in church yesterday and watching my busy little Eli crawl into many different peoples laps over and over again. He is getting to be so squirmy. The realization occurred to me that yes, it really does take a whole village to raise a child. It is a task that is too hard for one person to do alone. I am so thankful God has given me such a wonderful community of family and friends to help Eli and I make it through this first year. I know they will continue to help us and encourage us as time continues to pass on.
So, details from Eli's party- if you care to know what the day looked like:
We ate Sonny's BBQ- The best and really only true BBQ on the planet! I am a BBQ snob- and am very loyal to Sonny's and their sweet BBQ sauce and baked beans. That might possibly be my absolute favorite food- it is certainly hands down, no contest- my favorite restaurant. Anyway, enough about Sonny's- I could rave on forever about them.
After lunch we opened presents- a lot of presents. This was quite overwhelming for Eli. It was time for a change of pace so we went outside to take our energy out on a poor innocent little donkey. He was pinata style and filled with candy and trinkets. This was a lot of fun to watch as we baked in the smoldering hot Florida sunshine.
To cool off we ate some ice cream cake and laughed as Eli played a pretty mean game of patty-cake with his special cake made just for him. He wasn't too into the whole thing. For about 2 seconds it was fun- but then it started to get in his eyes which made him rub them more which made more of the icing that was on his fingers go in his eyes and the cycle continued... Adding to that, he was utterly exhausted from all the stimulation the afternoon had brought, and it was a pretty loud combination. He was done and ready for his nap.
So into the crib he went and took over a 3 hour nap. While Eli was napping I showed a DVD I had made of all of the edited video I had taken of him over the past year. This was 30 minutes long and a lot of fun to watch with everyone. I enjoyed hearing their reactions. We laughed, we cried and we awed. It was a special time.
The party was over by then and we were all beginning to feel tired as our sugar highs wore off and the afternoon slump hit us all like a ton of bricks. We sat and lounged with some friends that stayed behind and then the festivities were put on pause until next year when Eli turns 2. Of course their will be plenty of other festivities between now and then- but not another birthday party for Eli until 2006.
Happy Birthday Eli.
posted by Kellie # 9:54 PM
