Joe has been saying that we should make a potato cake for Stella's first birthday. (He thought the No Sweets For Babies rule applied even at birthday parties.) With sour cream, he said, and butter. She likes butterfat, our Stella does. So I made Fat Potato Fat Fat Casserole for the birthday dinner.
She approved.
The Polish side of my husband's family has an old old tradition for first birthdays: on a bench you line up a rosary, a dollar coin, a penny, and a shot glass. The baby toddles over and grabs one, and the tradition says that they're picking a destiny -- religious life, wealth, poverty, or alcoholism.
That last one strikes me as a horrible destiny to choose at the ripe old age of one, so we substituted coffee beans. My children are not allowed to get addicted to anything stronger than caffeine. Hear that, kids?
She picked the rosary. That's my girl.
Then came the cake! We practiced blowing earlier, with grandma and brothers and me all showing her how fun it is to make the flame disappear. She was willing to blow but doesn't have much puff. We helped her out.
I pulled out Whole Foods for the Whole Family and made a whole-grain banana cake -- it was a little more wholesome-tasting than some of the kids might have liked. (But kids, I should have said, I left out the nutritional yeast and the wheat germ. Want to know what your first-birthday cakes tasted like?) Stella hasn't had enough cake in her life to notice, though, and it had more butterfat on top in the form of cream cheese frosting.
She thought it was delicious. (Dress by Tracy, by the way.)
Then! Presents! Look how wide her eyes are. She's saying, Can you believe this, Mama?
But you know, a girl gets really tired after all that excitement. And then she likes to put on her fuzzy snowman sleeper, and sit down with her mama in a quiet spot, and ease right into sleep.
Sweet dreams, darling girl.
What a wonderfully sweet birthday for the whole family! Kelvin ate his very first taste of sugar in his 1st birthday party (mainly for most of our friends, grown ups) when a (Brazilian) friend picked him up and started feeding him the cake without asking me. I don't think he ate much. ;-)
Posted by: Lilian | December 25, 2009 at 02:37 PM
What a beautiful girl! Happy Birthday to Stella.
Posted by: Lisa C. | December 27, 2009 at 11:48 PM
Happy Birthday to your little one.
Posted by: Erin | December 28, 2009 at 09:58 AM
We did the Polish destiny thing with a book, a dollar, a rosary and a shot glass.
Boy 1 - money, book, money
Girl 1 rosary
girl 2 shot glass
Girl 3 shot glass
boy 2 shot glass
sigh.
Posted by: Jean | December 30, 2009 at 09:43 AM