I plan on making a fancy cake for Breanna’s actual party in December, either a butterfly or a ladybug (probably the ladybug since although the butterfly is beautiful, it has a higher aggravation factor). However, I wasn’t going to let her real birthday go by without some sort of cake for her. I made a simple white cake in a flute pan, iced it pink, stuck Smarties around the edges (obviously she didn’t eat any of those!), and then put in one candle for her age and one more for good luck. Here, she sits and stares in fascination at her cake while listening to us sing happy birthday to her.

She then offered up some polite applause for our loud singing.

At first she didn’t know how to react. She isn’t fond of messy hands, often staring in dismay at them if they get covered in something gooey like applesauce, so she really wasn’t sure about the icing on her fingers.

Then George told her to put it in her mouth and she realized the cake was pretty good (even if she looks like she’s flipping me off).

It was good enough for another round of applause.

Then when she had decided she’d eaten enough, she discovered it was also really fun to dump it all over her tray.

Within about 15 minutes, the sugar hit her. She then spent a good ten minutes or so walking around and around the apartment, screaming gleefully at the top of her lungs. Screaming. After that it took her an hour and a half to settle down enough to go to sleep, after which she crashed in a sugar coma for several hours before waking very briefly in the middle of the night for a bit of good old fashioned milk. I don’t think she’ll be eating anything sugary very often if she loses her mind that much! On the other hand, she enjoyed the cake so much and had so much fun afterwards that it wasn’t bad at all.

I still can’t believe that she’s a year old. This time a year ago I think I was just finishing up my special snack; they had missed our room when they brought snacks around at 8 pm so I asked the nurse about it and she was so horrified that a ravenous breastfeeding mother hadn’t been given anything to eat for the night that she immediately went to the lounge and made me toast and brought it with some peanut butter and jam and a big container of apple juice. She was my favorite L&D nurse. Breanna was sleeping for a little while, so tiny in her plastic bassinet beside me and now she’s this big girl in two-piece footed pajamas, curled up with Elmo in her crib down the hall. How does time do this?

Since I can’t let her have too much sugar, I think I’ll go eat some of that cake now. After all, I can’t waste it right?

How did I make this beautiful girl?