Not literally, I haven’t left the metropolitan area, much less the country, but I’ve been away in my head. Just a lot to do, not enough time and not enough rest to manage to get it all done, etc, blah blah blah, ad nauseum.
And then it gets a bit overwhelming to write again.
Like that muscle has been atrophied and you just can’t get yourself to even write a little bit, much less a whole page.
But it’s a new year – Year of the Snake! – and I’ve got to get started again. I started this after all to make sure I’d note the little things down so my baby would have a written record of her early years, before she’s able to write her own story. And also so I’d look back and not wonder what non-baby related things I’d done with myself during her infancy – that I’d planned and executed various projects and kept myself sharp, all whilst playing patty cake and having massive marathon games of playing with blocks ;o)
A lot has happened since I last wrote back in the Fall. For one, baby F. has turned 1 year old!
The day of her birthday party happened to coincide with Lunar New Year, so we decided it would be fun to get some Chinese Zodiac decorations and have it as the theme.
We started out by visiting Pearl River Mart, one of the coolest stores in Manhattan, chock-a-block full of goodies from all over Asia, but particularly China. Picked ourselves up some paper dragons and cute New Year boy and girl babies, some apples and goldfish and lastly a great little hanging piece with each one of the Chinese Zodiac animals.
I also decided to include a request in the party invitation for each guest’s birth year. I made each guest a pin of the head of their Zodiac animal to take home as a party favor. Unfortunately, I didn’t take the best of photos, but here’s a pic:
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| All the little duckies lined up in a row...ok, no ducks, but lots of roosters and rats :o) |
Another
reason we ended up going with the Lunar New Year theme was a fortuitous
coincidence. After Halloween I happened to have stopped in a Toys"R"us
store and happened to spot a couple of heavily discounted baby costumes.
Baby F. has a little bear one-piece, complete with ears and paws that she looks adorable in - she’s worn it out on days when it was chillier and I actually had someone think that she was a teddy bear, rather than a baby in a bear costume. Granted it was from the back and the lady was possibly a bit myopic, but still, she makes a very cute bear. Kind of like this on the left:
So
I thought picking up some heavily discounted baby costumes was a
no-brainer. One of the pieces we picked up was a dragon costume, this exact one on the right:We promptly put her in it and she ended up wearing it during Thanksgiving dinner, ‘cause... well, why not? We took a few pics that day and I ended up using a photo I’d taken of our city’s skyscrapers, merging it with one of the baby, tweaking it a bit and sending it out as our Christmas card.
It was a huge hit and when I was first thinking of what to do for her first birthday, I remembered the dragon picture. And only then did I realize that Baby F.’s Chinese Zodiac sign is a Dragon. That pretty much solidified it. I even made her a cake in the shape of a dragon. Now granted, this is not a particularly well made cake. I’d never worked with fondant before and frankly I’d been so busy hand-making little tiny animal heads into the wee hours of the dawn that I left the cake far too late and was literally trying to get it finished as the first guests were due.
Still, it was edible and looked like a dragon, so here’s a pic:
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| Yeah, i forgot its' mouth and it's a bit odd that it's just laying on top of aluminum foil. Hey, it was my first one! :P |
I used this pattern to start off of and then just kind of adjusted as I went along, making it twice as big as the original one.
Most of our friends were able to attend and Baby F. had a ball looking at the other kids there and chattering at all of the guests. She forgot about her nap and even about her dinner, so excited was she to see everything and everyone. I had a plan to take a photo of her with each guest/family, but that didn’t quite work out. Although she was very pleased to smile and coo and gab away with everyone, she pretty much just wanted to stay on her Vóvó for most of the day with occasional forays into the arms of some lucky guests.
There were heaps of thoughtful gifts both from those in attendance and from those who couldn’t make it - 3-headed dragon puppet! Wooly mammoth puppet! Baby Crayons! Books and clothes galore! - and you could feel all the love and affection for Baby F. in the room. It was a lot of work and the prep was a bit stressful , but I’m so glad I was able to do it both for F. and for everyone that came.
Happy First Birthday little one!
