Celia and Juniper Turn One

Today was the much-anticipated, eagerly-awaited first birthday party for my dear Celia and her dear friend Juniper. This party felt like a real Event; Natalia and Madhabi diligently planned it over the course of months while Tom and I did what most husbands do--not much of anything, except make jokes about how much effort our wives were putting into a birthday party. In other words, we were being very supportive.

Needless to say the party was a wild success and everyone had a good time. I will readily hand all credit over to Natalia and Madhabi...though I will admit being happy that we (she) does not have to plan another one of these for a year.

The party took place at Together In Motion, an indoor kid-gymnasium in Arlington. Yes, I did write about these types of places a few months ago; no, I am certainly not above holding a party at one of them. (This one was especially good--no people telling us what to do, and no jumping from game to game. Just free play on a bunch of foam structures.)

The birthday girls looked very cute in matching shirts and tutus. And while they slowly crawled and scooted around the play area, their older siblings, friends and relatives zoomed all about, climbing over bridges and diving over giant foam balls. Everybody seemed to find their niche and, somehow, everybody seemed to have a good time amidst all the craziness. For her part, Celia had a good time crawling up stairs and pulling herself to a standing position (though her fun was temporarily interrupted by an inconvenient meeting between her mouth and a plastic bar).

The birthday girl practices her walking.

Andres takes exception to Nell's goalkeeping.

Juniper and Tom

Having been to a few now, I'm realizing that first birthday parties are peculiar events. They seem more like celebrations of the newly-minted one year old than celebrations for the child him or herself--there's only so much that a one-year old can do, and I'm sure neither Juniper nor Celia would think anything was amiss had we just done cake at home and sung "Happy Birthday!" But of course this is a significant event, and the first birthday party itself gives parents a chance to bask in the glow of their own child turning one (and, perhaps not unrelated, it gives them a chance to be congratulated on making it this far, still in one piece).

This interpretation is meaningless to anyone between the ages of 2 and 7, of course--they celebrated Juniper and Celia's birthday by bombing around the gym, laughing, and crashing into each other.

A pizza lunch gave the kids more energy to run around, and 20 minutes later it was time for the main event--cake. (This cake came from Country Desserts in Newton, my new favorite local bakery. Seriously, they are really good and managed to pull off a difficult cake with aplomb.) By this point Celia and Juniper were both partied out and they each broke down in tears before trying their celebratory cupcakes.



I can't exactly blame them either...I'd be pretty mortified myself if I had 50 people staring at me while I ate dessert. In the end, though, they both pulled it together and enjoyed their birthday treats.



And there you have it--the party ended, the celebration was over, and it was time for everyone to go home for some well-deserved rest. All the party-goers left with some commemorative tins (containing jellybeans) in hand, and kids got a goody-bag that contained crayons made by Madhabi and Natalia. Yes--they made crayons in the shape of the number 1 specifically for this occasion. No--I wasn't much help during that project either. But I did take photos today, so that should count for something, right? Right?

The Cake! It was awesome.

Growing older is no fun.

A happy Juniper!