Happy First Birthday, Gaius! Watermelon Cake!

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Gaius's first birthday was a cozy celebration within the family. The cake, his favorite treat: Watermelon! Gaius turns into an octopus with fast-moving tentacles whenever watermelon is around. I can sincerely say it must be genetically inherited from Mommy.

Here's a photo log of the event, and some of his latest milestones.



Gaius is 1! He's already acting the age:
  • He is very opinionated about activities, locations, food, person playing with him etc.
  • He has been walking all over the place with occasional hand-to-ground checks over the past week. Our threshold of officially walking was 17 steps in a row, which he casually passed on his birthday repeatedly, yet somehow ensuring the performance is not caught on camera.
  • Communication: more (sign plus voice: mah-mah), drink, ceiling fan, lamp, moon, and his all-time favorite: ball (sign plus: bah). The occasional sign for please also happens but it is unpredictable. This is of course on top of the point & twist move where he turns his body so hard toward what he wants that you almost drop him; it's hard to pretend you didn't understand what he meant.
  • Fun: He loves to throw and catch balls! He's actually surprisingly coordinated, reaching for the ball as it's coming.
  • Eating: everything goes, including stealing a chocolate chip cookie from Daddy's hand which was quite instantly half-devoured and half-smeared all over his face.
  • Speedy climbing up and sliding down the long flight of stairs in our home. He is somewhat overconfident, even standing in the middle of the flight of stairs with a big grin, so we always supervise from below.
  • Last week he was shuffling sideways in Mara's daycare yard, I guess walking forward is already 'done' so he wants to spice it up.


We couldn't have had a more appropriate cake for our family. Mara reminisced that evening before going to bed: We had watermelon cake today. It was Yuuuh-meeh!

Yet even for practical purposes: it took about 5 minutes to make, it cut perfectly, held the candle so well, and was indeed super-yummy!




At half-time: large grins and still a lot of munching!


We made sure to get dinner before the cake, and our little boy decided ribs are delicious. He gnawed on one until it was just the bone, then happily chewed on that further.

Kitty delivered a present right at dinner time: a large lizard! can you spot it hiding in between the logs?


Many thanks to Greg's parents who came to celebrate with us!



Here's Gaius after a LOT of watermelon cake:


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