A Beautiful Birthday

Felix turned one this week! His birthday was yesterday, and I took the day off work to spend it with him. The weather was a gorgeous 75, sunny and breezy, and all our plans went off without a hitch.

We started by visiting the bilingual daycare he’ll start part-time when he’s 18 months old. They have about 3 structured hours during the day and the rest is meal, nap and free time, like a typical daycare. I’m so excited for him to start really learning Spanish! He loves his current daycare and the bilingual place is almost twice the price, so that’s why we’re not going full-time right away. 

Next we headed to the zoo – Felix’s first trip. Three hundred junior high students and 40 parent helpers got there right before we did, so it was a zoo within a zoo for a while! Felix loved the animals, especially the giant hares and jellyfish. There was lots of pointing and saying “that”, “yeah” and “Jayda” (our dog’s name). A leopard growled at us, the lions sat right near the glass, and the giraffes wrapped around each other and licked each other’s faces. Pretty darn cute. We rode the carousel and bought a book about baby tigers before we left. You can watch a video of the gibbon monkeys howling on Youtube.

You're going to hold on to me, right?!

Showing me the giant hares.

Best birthday ever, mom!

Next we stopped by his cousins’ house for a little playtime, and then it was back in the car for a playdate picnic at the park. I heard about it at the last minute and didn’t have time to bring a snack, but everyone there was happy to share their graham crackers and fruit with us.

After that, we visited Uncle Brian at work. His coworker gave me some freelance projects during maternity leave last summer, and she hadn’t seen Felix in a really long time. Then we ran home for a very special birthday dinner of leftover mac n cheese (hey, it was organic!) then off to Ride-Along Fitness.

Felix was sleeping hard well before 8 pm. I left him on the chair in the living room, then gently woke him up for a bottle, pjs and the first-ever reading of Felix’s Birth Story, a book I had made that covers me getting “the call” to us coming home together. 

 

His birthday party is this Saturday in the park. The forecast says 72 and sunny – fingers crossed!