The Big Oh-One

It's amazing to think that our baby is one. The day when she officially became a toddler (according to all the books) had been looming for some time and I spent the much of the preceding month thinking, "This time last year, we were still calling her Keith", "This time last year, I was asking for an epidural" etc etc and it really felt as if the birthday was a teensy bit more about me than Alice. However, as it got to evening time on 24th January, it dawned on me that actually, the birthday was not mine to own but mine to cater for and that I had better get my act together.

The 40 degree heat on Saturday wasn't helping and we were very grateful when a cool change blew through on Saturday evening so that I could at last put the oven on and make some of the treats for the party the next morning.


The big day arrived and our heroine woke at 5.30am to greet the happy morn. I suppose that is a pattern which will carry through her early years on 25th January. I had hoped for a little more sleep and certainly grumped about enough to let the birthday girl know this fact, so her Dad took her out for a birthday walk so that I could have a birthday 45 minutes extra sleep. After Alice's return, some more cooking and a special birthday steaming nappy, I set off for the park to prepare the birthday tree and the birthday spread.


Having spent months browsing cake websites and thinking about associated co-ordinating party themes, I decided to wait until she is old enough to nag me for Dora the Explorer parties with genuine trips for her and her whole class to South America or Barbie parties with take home cadillacs for all and to just do a nice spread and make the cake myself. So the theme was along the lines of Australia Day (that's on 26th Jan for the pommie readers), with a twist of englishness (ie Neil said that you had to have frazzles at a first birthday party, so I bought some of those too).


Suffice to say that the event went well and both Pass the Parcel and Backyard Cricket kept the grown-ups amused. The Anzac cookies were the hit of the morning (especially with the birthday girl) and I was very pleased with her cake(s). Alice had a lovely time, ate the marmite sandwiches (ah yes, that was the other piece of englishness) and gamely sat on everyone's knee, as required, enjoyed the singing of Happy Birthday and didn't seem to mind the dollar shop balloons bursting loudly every few minutes.


She was completely zonked by the end of it and so we broke up the cricket before anyone was too badly injured and took her home for a birthday nap. She had a birthday cold so Stu and I cancelled our/her birthday dinner out (without her) and had champagne at home while Alice frolicked in her wrapping paper.

Did I mention that I was quite pleased with the cake?!


There had been some minor dramas with the first batch of chocolate button eyes melting into an amorphous mass in the heat and the Annabel Karmel recipe for the cakes designating that the ears should be made out of langue de chat biscuits. The Sydney french community seems to exist without these staples, as I could not find them anywhere. A tin did turn up at Jones the Grocer in Woollahra, but when invited to pay as much as a morning at daycare would cost for them, I politely declined and used banana sweeties instead. The girl at the cash register was most put out.

So Alice is now a one year old and um, nothing seems that different from when she was eleven months. She is still chatty, happy, an early riser, refusing to hold her own bottle because she likes a cuddle with her milk, smiley, very fast at crawling, loving her books, scared of the Coles delivery man and pretty easy going. However, it still feels like a real milestone and it was lovely that at least one set of grandparents were around to see it. We'll celebrate all over again next month with Nanna and Grandad Keefe - really every day is Alice Day around here!