What's That Smell?

What's that Smell?

So, it is fair to say that we have reached another milestone in our lives. My daughter's First Birthday Party. And what a party it was. Though it was not technically her birthday (it is Tues), we wanted to make sure that everyone would get to attend so we picked a weekend to celebrate. The party was not scheduled to start until 2pm, but people started rolling in earlier than that. I think that everyone had the same idea, "let's get there early so we can play with the birthday girl before everyone else gets there!" While this may have been a good idea on paper, when it came time for the execution, it did not work. I was frantically trying to get the house in order when people started showing up. Fortunatly, I had some good help to finish things so I could go get myself ready.

After everyone arrived, we all had a great time visiting and chowing down on some yummy Corky's BBQ. Poor Little Ali ate about Half of my friend Heather's Sandwich! She must have been a hungry little girl! After dinner, it was on to present time.

This was Ali's first attempt at opening presents. She had no idea what to do at first, fortunately, we had our nephew Jacob to help her figure it out! It took her no time to learn how to pull tissue paper out of the bags. She had a really good time with the paper, even if she didn't quite understand it all. Also, there were some really great toys under all that paper! Wooden toys, educational toys, and pretend toys. All great things for a little one to have!

After presents, it was time for cake. Now, by this time, you must understand that Ali had been up since 7:30 or so without a nap. By cake time (somewhere around 3 or so), she was exhausted to the point of passing out. We put her in the highchair and gave her a little "baby block" cake to eat. Her big cake was baby blocks stacked up on top of each other. She wasn't too sure what was going on with the cake, but eventually she wrapped both arms around it and pulled it toward her....then she took a big bite out of it! It was too cute. After she fiddled and gnawed on it for awhile, she started nodding off. It was the most adorable thing that I have seen in a long time. Her little eyes were drooping and closing and her little head was dipping and lolling....and the whole time her little hand never left the cake! I guess she gets it honest. Never let go of the cake!!

Poor baby. She had a long day. But it was a wonderful day. She played and played with her friends and family. We unwrapped new presents (at the request of her cousin) and played more! By the time that everyone left at around 7pm, she could not stand it any longer. She finally passed out. We put her to bed, and she slept for about 12 hours. My sweet baby girl!

After we put her to bed, Ed and I started to address the chaos that was our house. There was cake EVERYWHERE. There were toys EVERYWHERE. And there was trash EVERYWHERE. I guess this was all to be expected...and fortunately it all cleaned up relatively quickly. We even were able to unpack all of her new toys and find new "homes" for them all. She got some really neat things...puzzles, wooden toys, a kitchen playset, a carousel rocky horse, and many many more things. She even got her first baby dolls.

One of the most profound things happened while we were cleaning up and organizing toys. Do you ever get a whiff of something that smells so overwhelmingly familiar that it just stops you right in your tracks? This happens to me occasionally, but I had another moment like this yesterday when we opened up the Cabbage Patch Doll that she got. It's really odd...I was trying to adjust the bow in the doll's hair (her name in Jaida Lina, by the way) and I could smell her head. I know how odd this sounds, but trust me. It smelled just like the Cabbage Patch "Premie" that I carried around for years. I took him everywhere...bed, church, dinner...he was seldom out of my sight. All of these memories flooded my mind when I opened this doll. I suddenly realized that my little daughter is beginning to form memories of her own. She will one day be playing with her daughter or son and think back to when she was a little girl. It's really odd to be thinking about your life in such a way. It seems that just yesterday I was playing with that doll. I would 'feed', 'diaper', and care for that little man in the only ways that I knew how. All of it just practice for the real thing. I'm now watching Ali carry her dolls around. Is she practicing too? I can't wait to find out.







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