Happy 1st birthday, Amelia

Amelia turned 1 year old on March 22nd.

Of course this post is late. I call it second-child syndrome.

Like how for Erika's first birthday, we mailed out birthday invites a month in advance, threw her a birthday party with helium balloons and banner and coordinated napkins (it was small-- just her grandmother, aunt, uncle, and godparents, but still), bought her so many presents, bought her a cute birthday dress, snapped lots of photos, marveled at how much she enjoyed tasting chocolate cake for the first time (aww!).

For Amelia, she wore her regular clothes for daycare (a plain white onesie, some fleece pants, and a hand-me-down cardigan. Like, a real hand-me-down--- I believe she's the fourth person to own this cardigan...). We went to a local restaurant for dinner; one that we had a $50 gift card for and we ordered food that came to $60 plus tax and tip, and Erika wanted to be an awesome big sister, so she brought all her savings in a purse and paid for Amelia's birthday dinner with the gift card and eighteen $1 bills that she meticulously counted out, twice over, just to make sure.

We came home, stuck a candle in a cake I picked up at the grocery store, and sang her Happy Birthday. Brian and Erika helped Amelia blow out the candle. Everybody got a slice of cake, and anticlimatically (though quite expectedly, given her personality), she hated cake. She took one lick and thought it was just foul and complained loudly, wondering why we'd subject her to such godawful sweet stuff.

Brian gave her a nice warm bath, and we all changed into pajamas, and read some books before bed, and called it a night. Somehow, it was just wonderful.

Happy birthday, my baby Meals.