Baby M is 1 Year Old -- That's WILD!

Baby M is 1 year old. I know I am supposed to say, "I can't believe it's been a year already" but it really does seem like it has been a year since we brought him home from the hospital. Yes the last few months have flown by, but I remember back to last year when we measured Baby M's age in days and looked forward to weekly milestones that seemed to take forever to arrive. We waited for his colic to "peak" and eagerly counted up to week 8, week 10, week 12 , until finally (week 16?) he started crying a little less and smiling a little more. There were long days when I would look at the clock and think, "only 5 more hours until bedtime." Actually, there are still days that I do that.

We celebrated Baby M's first birthday last weekend with a simple party at Lindberg Park in Culver City. In Los Angeles kid birthday parties can quickly go overboard with bounce houses, petting zoos, ice sculptures, etc. I certainly had no intention of throwing that kind of party, but I did want to do something more than my typical party which consists of burgers on the grill in the back yard. Every party planning guide instructs you to start with a theme so that's where I started. Initially I proposed a theme of Asian Pop Culture. I had this crazy idea that I could somehow re-create MOCA's Murakami opening party on a 1 year old scale by shopping at Giant Robot and Mitsuwa. My husband gently suggested that this might be a little overly ambitious. So I considered a variety of other themes including Ugly Dolls (discarded after they were featured too prominently in Cookie Magazine) and Robots (discarded after a friend had a robot themed party for her toddler which included her husband dressed up as a robot in a costume that, no kidding, took him 20 hours to make) and finally settled on Where the Wild Things Are. I love this classic children's book and the mischievous little boy in the story has always reminded me of Baby M. Despite the facts that this year is author Maurice Sendak's 80th birthday and Spike Jonze is currently working on a live-action version of Where the Wild Things Are, there was very little available in the way of party decorations, favors, etc. I ended up making custom invitations and bubble labels using my computer and found an ornament from Hallmark to use as a cake topper. It wasn't a ton of work, but my tip to other slacker moms out there is to look through the party themes available at your local party store and then just choose from those. Of course, as my husband repeatedly pointed out the party was really about Baby M and our friends and family probably would have had just as much fun if the party had been themeless. Still, I am pleased that we ushered in his first year with a bit of fun and originality.