First Birthday Party

8/1/2004

(Author’s Note: As stress-related illnesses are a national problem, let me just say right off that Xander never stopped breathing and was in no real danger.)

So, Alexander Eric has just celebrated his first birthday yesterday. (Though, his birthday was actually last week. Our big event that day was going to Lowe’s to buy a freezer.) For reasons explained below, he didn’t open up presents until today after his mid-morning nap. Right now, he’s taking his late afternoon nap though from the sounds of it, he’s really just hootin’ and hollerin’. No doubt, he’ll eventually collapse; probably just in time for his 5:30 wake up call.

It’s been really hot over here lately. Mid-90s every day. The mornings are nice and cool (well, before 10:00, it’s under 80 degrees.) and we seal up all the doors and windows by 11:00 and the Ranch House stays a good 15 degrees cooler than outside. It’s not much but we’ll take it.

Yesterday, we celebrated two birthdays. In addition to Xander turning 1, nephew Hunter turned 5 so we had much to celebrate. Grandmother Tina (AKA: Tutu) naturally went overboard on everything. The boys probably didn’t each need their own cakes but, well, grandparents are like that.

Gregg showed up a bit early to help with decorations¸ such as they were. Wendi and he put up a few streamers while I recorded all the exciting events with the camera. Trust me, this’ll all make for some mighty compelling drama.

By 6:30, Jeff and Maria, Steve, Ursula and Lia and Gregg were here along with Holly’s family, Harold, Tina and Konnosan. The salmon was roasting on the barbeque. I was my usual obnoxious self, walking about with my video camera and Wendi was trying to corral the Brothers Hardy into a photo shoot. Hopefully, at least one of the 20 different shots Wendi took of us will turn out alright. There is only so much you can do with Photoshop…

We sat down to eat about 7:00 and there was a lot of food. Like I said, Tutu really went overboard. X-man sat between us and sloooooowly chewed on Cheerios and the occasional microscopic bit of grown-up food we slipped him. Yesterday was his first pasta, cantaloupe and, of course, cake. Soon after the food was finished and we staggered away from the table, the cakes were brought out. Hunter’s had aliens and explosions on it. Xander’s had Winnie the Pooh. (I kinda liked Hunter’s, myself.) With one video camera, two digital and two film cameras going, we presented the cakes to the boys. Hunter blew out his candles while Xander just looked in awe at his cake, which was about as big as his torso. As happens in EVERY first birthday cake situation (by law, I think), the Guest of Honor, slowly started reaching towards the cake. The photographers, already in a fever pitch, eagerly awaited “THE SHOT: the photo in every single baby book of the little one with a handful of cake and/or a nice facial mask of frosting.

Xander, being terribly well-mannered, much like his father, didn’t go overboard here but rather just kept patting Winnie’s legs. (Click, click, click) Finally, when he decided he might want to stick his feet into the cake, the adults decided to move him back and start handing out slices.

(For some reason, Hunter’s cake got a lot more customers. Guess aliens are more popular than bears.)

The Boy got his little slice and started eating handfuls of it. He also managed to wipe a large swath of bright blue frosting onto Uncle Jeff’s shirt, which most of us found terribly amusing. (Click, click, click) After 10 minutes or so of this, face and hands covered in cake entails, he started chewing on the plate, which again was quite a bit of fun. (Click, click, click)

Wendi doesn’t normally go for this sort of thing but was making an effort to lighten up and relax and so continued to let him have fun.  However, all things must end and Wendi started cleaning him up using several towels. This was not working to mommy’s complete satisfaction. We decided to move the kid into the bathroom. This took on a bit of urgency when we realized he had wiped his eye with his blue frosting-dyed hand. It was starting to swell. The upstairs bathroom just wasn’t cutting it; we zipped downstairs to the bathtub. By this time, his left eye was completely shut so Wendi disrobed and got into the tub with him and we started trying to flush his eye.

In the back of our minds was that he ate something he was allergic to and this was an allergic reaction.

We flushed him as well as we could though got a lot of water up his nose; our infant not being big on holding his breath. While drying him, he seemed to be gasping for breath. Said Wendi, “That does it! I’m calling 9-1-1” off my wet, nude wife went running in search of a phone.

(Author’s note: Once again, relax. Everything was cool.)

While it was just the two of us, I continued to dry him and listened to his breathing. He was certainly cloggy and breathing heavily but in retrospect, this was probably the result of a lot of crying on his part, coupled with a very stuffy nose and inhaling too much water as we tried to flush his eye out.  The cure was worse than the symptoms. Well, hindsight and all.

Eventually, the paramedics showed up. Once again, my high school science teacher, Mr. R, was there. The last time he entered our lives was to take Mom’s body away to the…well, I don’t actually know. (We gotta stop having that guy over to family gatherings.)

Anyway, the EMTs listened to his breathing, checked his heart rate and flushed his eye out a little more. There really wasn’t a whole lot they could do at this point except say, “Boy, that’s one swollen eye!” Xander had simmered down though this was probably exhaustion more than anything else. Naturally, he slept poorly that night but that may have been the heat as well as his eye. My poking him every 30 minutes or so to see that he was still breathing probably didn’t help either.

And Wendi naturally castigated herself as the Worst Mother in the World for taking photos while her Pride and Joy was endangering his life and limb with a perilous pastry. Wendi also sort of implied that I might want to feel a bit worse about it, too.

However, we all survived. Alexander’s eye is still just a bit swollen but you wouldn’t notice it unless you were paranoid parent. The Evil Cake remains only half eaten (no takers amongst the EMTs) and will probably remain so. Tomorrow, we return to Silverdale where we can work to minimize any/all sources of danger to our little one as well as start evangelizing to our friends who are soon-to-be-parents about the dangers of cake.

Oh yeah. We’ll be a big hit at parties.

Anyway, that’s the big story of our first birthday party. Thanks to all for the gifts you sent or are sending. (Or maybe just thinking about sending.) Stop by and see us sometime.

Take care and watch out for that wicked blue frosting.

B/W/X