On Saturday, my cousin Jennifer’s baby Alexandra turned 1 year old! Time flies! Jennifer and her hubby hosted a buffet brunch at Back Bay Bistro, a really nice place sitting right over the kayak/small craft launch area of Newport Beach. We rushed Allie there as soon as she was up from her morning nap. Okay, I had to wake her over 90 minutes in, as she took a longer nap than usual. Figures.
Jennifer had an adorable theme of owls.

In the private room, there were orange and white balloons, colorful stuffed toy owls in wicker baskets in the center of each table, owl stickers, even an owl finger puppet board book for each attending baby. I think Allie may have been the youngest, as all the other “babies” were at least walking independently. In each owl “nest” wicker basket were an assortment of differently-colored construction paper, on which the guests were asked to write a message to Alex for a time capsule, which the parents plan to give Alex when she’s about to go off to college. It was hard imagining this 1-yr-old as an 18-yr-old, but I still got all sentimental writing my note, imagining her as a young adult about to start her semi-adult life. (I chose a yellow owl and blue owl sticker to decorate my note, as together they make UCLA colors, hee hee.)

The private room opened out onto a little grassy yard, which Jennifer had set up with a bubble machine and a colorful tunnel for the kids to play with.

Crawl, baby, crawl!

Yay! Almost to mama!

Allie got to hang out with her older cousin Elle, whom I still remember as a newborn. Crazy.

I’d kept trying to find Alex so Allie can have a pic with the birthday girl, and Alex was adorably dressed that day, but some grownup or other always monopolized her. =/ At least she got a little time with her auntie Jennifer, Alex’s mom. I guess Jen will have to be Alex’s representive. 🙂

There would’ve been no photos of me as usual except that handed Mr. W the phone and made him take some of me with Allie Cat.

We had fun, but it was a short event for us. We got there half an hour late (altho there were plenty of people with kids who were an hour or more late), and then were one of the first to leave to make it back for Allie’s afternoon nap. In the hour+ we were there (plus half an hour of drive time each way), I barely had time to eat and definitely didn’t want to stand idly in the long buffet line when I could be hanging with Allie feeding her so that Mr. W can eat (and he did eat), so that’s what I did. Mr. W pestered me the entire time to go get food, but I was too busy to care. My uncle, Alex’s grandfather, sat across from us and watched admiringly as Allie obediently ate all her chicken w/zucchini, carrots, and blueberries w/multigrain cereal, then fed herself her puffs and drank from her sippy cup. “She eats very well!” he said, impressed. I got a flashback of Alex’s mom Jennifer at age 4, sitting at the family table for each meal crying, as my uncle stood over her with a ruler in his hand, rapping at her hand and loudly on the table as he demanded in Mandarin, “EAT! EAT EAT EAT! CHEW CHEW CHEW!” Yeah, Jennifer did not enjoy her mealtimes. =P
Knowing the stress and planning involved with getting this brunch together, and knowing that Alex had to be there on time and stay until the last guest left, I’m feeling even less inclined to do a 1-yr party for Allie. They say the 1st bday party is for the parents instead of for the kid, anyway. I keep thinking things will be easier time-wise once she’s on 1 nap a day, which should be sometime in her 2nd year (next year). Maybe I’ll start with the public bday shindigs with a lake event for her 2nd bday. But then there’s the other issue — Allie’s bday is always gonna fall on/around Thanksgiving weekend. Potential guests would most likely have plans to be with family, or be out of town. This will be interesting.