Happy First Birthday, Claire!

Claire's birthday celebration was decidedly low-key. We're having her family party on May 2, so it was just the four of us celebrating her actual birthday on Wednesday night (one day early in case Bob had to work late the following night).

Elsa and I tried to make a birthday cake that afternoon, but as usual, there was a mishap, and the layers couldn't be extracted from the pans. So Daddy picked up some cupcakes from Sendik's, decorated with rosebuds and plastic butterfly rings.


After Elsa blew out Claire's single candle, we presented Claire with her very own chocolate cupcake. I really wasn't convinced that she would eat any, but she did!


Not a lot—she ate some bites and then became more interested in the wrapper than the cake. She didn't want to smoosh the cake all over herself either. But she did eat some, and appeared to like it.

She was tentative about putting her hands in it, so I broke it up for her a little. Eventually it got all over her arm, and some ended up on her face, but she wasn't nearly as into it as Elsa was on her first birthday.

Elsa, of course, couldn't wait to get her hands on hers. : )

After cupcakes, we opened a few presents. "Elsa" donated to the World Wildlife Fund in Claire's name, and adopted a sea turtle for her.


We got a stuffed sea turtle in exchange for our donation, so Claire got to open that. (It came in a reusable cloth bag, so we used that instead of wrapping paper. I'd like to say that was part of my quest to make Claire's birthday green, but it was really because I was busy that day and ran out of time.)

Mommy and Daddy's gifts to Claire on her first birthday: 40 acres of cloud forest and 35,000 pounds of carbon offset. Difficult to wrap, but I'm sure she loved them nonetheless. : )

Claire also opened a present that arrived that afternoon from Grandpa and Grandma J. They gave her one hour of field research on elephants in Africa, and a Three Little Pigs playset.

The piggies from the playset got some kisses. (Claire loves to give kisses lately.)

Elsa immediately tried to claim the Three Little Pigs toy as her own. I think all of our toys fall into one of two categories in Elsa's mind: 1) Belongs entirely to her, and Claire can't ever touch it; or 2) Belongs entirely to her, but Claire can borrow it occasionally. Elsa just doesn't get the concept that Claire will have some of her own belongings, especially now that she's getting older. Whenever I say to Elsa, "No, that's Claire's," Elsa's response is, "Okay, we'll share it." Which I suppose is true, but in Elsa's head, I think "sharing" is really code for "I'll do what I want with it, and Claire can play with it whenever I'm not." So even though it's probably not important yet whether Elsa or Claire is the technical, on-paper "owner" of a given toy, I'm trying to impress it upon Elsa anyway, since this is bound to become more and more of an issue from here on out.

I think Claire had a very happy birthday (and Elsa certainly enjoyed it too!) We're looking forward to her party next weekend. Thanks to everyone for all her wonderful gifts so far.