Stevie's First Birthday
Sep. 25th, 2004 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothToday, I went to a birthday party for my cousin Stevie, who was 1 on Thursday. He had a bunch of his friends over -- or, well, Anna and Alex had a bunch of their similarly baby-equipped friends over, for a big bad babyfest and barbecue. No, they didn't barbecue the babies, although at one point a couple of them were wandering dangerously near the grill.
The grill was mostly a success, but I got an exploded and dangerously undercooked bratwurst... I cooked it more, once I noticed the inside was raw, but at least one bite of undercooked meat went down before I noticed that, so I hope I don't get sick. Or tapeworms. So far, so good...
Stevie didn't want to play with the other kids. He kept running off on his own and climbing up and down the rough cement stairway next to the house. Eventually, he was placed in the center of everything, and after looking around confused for a while, started crying.
Alex also made a pretty bad faux pass... the invitation had said 'no gifts necessary', but as this was birthday season -- all the friends present were from baby support groups, with kids of extremely similar ages, and so everyone there had been going to and will be going to more birthday parties every weekend for the next couple months -- they'd just a week previous gone to a different party that was 'no gifts necessary' and found themselves the only ones who hadn't brought gifts. So it was particularly crass to ask the person who'd brought only a card where her gift was, especially considering she was the one they'd just snubbed.
The party was successfull, though, in that the adults and children were both mostly entertained. As a family member, I got to stay behind and help clean up, and then we walked down to the locks, to look at the salmon in the fish ladder, and the goose on the prickly hill. There was a bit of spookiness -- the locks cycled several times while we were there, and always had boats in them -- different boats -- when they were going up or down, but we never saw even a single boat in motion out on the water. Where were they coming from? Where were they going?!
After the long walk back uphill from the locks, we sat around for a while, put Stevie to bed, and then I begged off, claiming fatigue (not entirely a lie), and headed home. It was almost their bedtime anyway.
The grill was mostly a success, but I got an exploded and dangerously undercooked bratwurst... I cooked it more, once I noticed the inside was raw, but at least one bite of undercooked meat went down before I noticed that, so I hope I don't get sick. Or tapeworms. So far, so good...
Stevie didn't want to play with the other kids. He kept running off on his own and climbing up and down the rough cement stairway next to the house. Eventually, he was placed in the center of everything, and after looking around confused for a while, started crying.
Alex also made a pretty bad faux pass... the invitation had said 'no gifts necessary', but as this was birthday season -- all the friends present were from baby support groups, with kids of extremely similar ages, and so everyone there had been going to and will be going to more birthday parties every weekend for the next couple months -- they'd just a week previous gone to a different party that was 'no gifts necessary' and found themselves the only ones who hadn't brought gifts. So it was particularly crass to ask the person who'd brought only a card where her gift was, especially considering she was the one they'd just snubbed.
The party was successfull, though, in that the adults and children were both mostly entertained. As a family member, I got to stay behind and help clean up, and then we walked down to the locks, to look at the salmon in the fish ladder, and the goose on the prickly hill. There was a bit of spookiness -- the locks cycled several times while we were there, and always had boats in them -- different boats -- when they were going up or down, but we never saw even a single boat in motion out on the water. Where were they coming from? Where were they going?!
After the long walk back uphill from the locks, we sat around for a while, put Stevie to bed, and then I begged off, claiming fatigue (not entirely a lie), and headed home. It was almost their bedtime anyway.
