Wesley is 1! For his first birthday we took the advice of daycare and got him a play kitchen. Apparently it was his favorite thing at daycare, and is now his favorite thing at home. I found out just what it is to be a dad the night before gift giving while I spent over an hour building an Ikea Play Kitchen, but it was all worth it when he was excited and playing first thing in the morning. For any parents looking for a play kitchen we can’t recommend this one enough. It’s inexpensive, looks great, and seems really sturdy.
After the surprise of the kitchen we gave Wes his “birthday cake” at home. Because we’re trying to limit sugar his “cake” on the day of his birthday was really just fruit with a candle stuck in it. You can see in the pictures that he can’t figure out why a candle is stuck in his fruit.
Next up, the birthday party, but we can’t show up at our first birthday looking crazy, so I called in the help of my old friend Diana Schmidtke to give Wes a Hollywood haircut. Wesley tolerated the haircut pretty well, but he was pretty suspicious about what Diana was doing back there most of the time. But he again proved to be a very good baby and there were no tears the entire time.
With his new hair he was ready for the big day! Due to Covid we didn’t have a baby shower, which meant we still had all of the decorations and accessories for a Cuba themed party. So instead of “Rich and Cat are Havanaing a Baby” it became “Wesley is Havanaing a Birthday.” We ordered food from Versailles, Ba Ut made egg rolls, we had sandwiches from Sorrento, and of course Cat’s incredibly talented friend Jenny Vu Tran of Intricakes made Wesley’s first birthday cakes. Cat rented a foam course and ball pit from Tiny Tots Mobile Play who were incredibly accommodating and really did an excellent job. They assured us that Covid protocols were in place and everything was cleaned and sanitized after each use with natural ingredients. They came early to setup and were so apologetic when they had to tear the setup down (which was unnecessary since they came exactly on time and it was our fault for running over).
Because Covid is still such a factor we kept the party smaller than we otherwise would have and only invited family. We also required all guests to be vaccinated. Wesley still had a great time with his family being passed around, loved, and playing in the foam and ball pit. He also received a generous amount of red envelopes to go towards his growing college fund.
Finally Wesley got his first taste of real sugar – processed, bleached, refined sugar. He was slow to eat his cake at first, and the first several bites were small while slowly getting bigger. Before long he was shoving overflowing handfuls of sugary goodness into his mouth. It’s a good thing there were 2 cakes because Wesley refused to share his with anyone!
After cake we followed a Vietnamese tradition where on a child’s first birthday they are offered a number of different items, and the first that they choose will determine what career they’ll take when they grow up. Wesley chose the block, which symbolizes engineering or construction, but the truth is it was by far the most colorful, interesting toy of the bunch. His second choice was a kitchen spoon which also wasn’t very surprising since those are among his favorite toys at home and daycare.
Overall I think the birthday was a success. It’s too bad things aren’t normal and we weren’t able to celebrate with everyone who loves Wes, but we’re hopeful that his second birthday can be the bash that his first couldn’t be.
