One year old

One year old
Originally uploaded by kaymaria

10/6/07

Oliver turned a year old today.

Since Tommy is currently a little busy participating in the wilderness challenge (we figured it was the only year we could get away with truly celebrating O’s bday on another day other than his actual birthday), I decided to take Oliver into New York for the day so we could celebrate just a little.

Needless to say, it was a great day and we partook of the stereotypical melting pot that is New York. I loaded my flickr pics backwards so you could see the proper order of the day.

We spent the night at Judah’s house last night. I had made cupcakes so we had our first commemorative birthday cupcake and O was sung too while staring mesmerized at the candle (more pics to follow but they’re in Stace’s camera which is in Mexico for the next week). The next morning I awoke to a very wet and saturated baby and Pack & Play. After clean-up, we then took the train into Grand Central Station and decided to walk down to Union Square (rather than taking the subway) to meet Lynn & Nicole for lunch. On the way, I passed the Empire State Building so I elected the help of many tourists to take our picture to commemorate the day. In doing so, we met people from France, New Zealand, and Spain. Fortunately, I was able to return the photo favor by taking pics of the French couple. Tres bon!

As we approached Union Square, we passed a really big, very tall guy wearing a sandwich board touting a suit shop going out of business. As we passed, he looked into the stroller and commented, “Ay, que lindo!” [basically Spanish for: Oh, how cute!]

We had a great lunch at Rosa Mexicano and I was able to get to know Lynn’s girlfriend, Nicole a little better. SUCH a catch!

Afterwards, we walked to Books of Wonder, stopping at Cupcake Café for an adequate but commemorative birthday cupcake. Books of Wonder is a great bookstore for kids. Oliver is obssessed with the opposites books by Leslie Patricelli. When we first moved here, I bought him Big Little because I figured his baby-baby eyes would like the bold colors. After that, Yummy Yucky soon followed. When I couldn’t find Quiet Loud at the local bookstores, I ordered it online and O acted like his long lost baby brother was finally shipped to him. He truly studies the pages and now can turn them relatively well which is absolutely insanely precious. So yesterday, though I was hesitant to encourage “the plug” (what we call his pacifier) since he kind of hangs on to it a bit too much, I looked through Binky. The ending was great. Seriously, I think Mrs. Patricelli – who is from Seattle, of course – what’s not to like?, was equally hesitant with her kids so she wrote this book. So I bought it and a signed copy of #1 (one) I love, love, love this book! I want to get Ten next…and everything else thereafter.

Another Why I Like NY Moment occurred as we left Lynn and Nicole and headed uptown. I was walking (briskly, of course) and all of a sudden, the weight of my travel mug full of coffee snapped the snap of the little mesh cup holder of O’s stroller. Granted, it was probably too heavy to support the weight from the get-go, but thankfully it waited til after we left the restaurant, bookstore, etc. So, it dropped and the lid shot off spraying coffee all over the sidewalk. A second sooner, and it would have been all over the guy walking briskly next to me. And yet, said guy bent over and picked up the coffee-covered lid to said travel mug, handed it to me, and resumed his brisk walk. I didn’t even have time to offer him a baby wipe so his hand didn’t smell like that day’s Starbucks. THAT doesn’t happen everywhere.

So we slowly headed back to Grand Central. I pulled a Mom and said, “We’re going to pop into the MAC store for a couple of lipsticks, but after that, we’ll go swing in the park.” Like I needed to bribe when it dawned on me that MAC stores are filled with women, cool lighting, and mirrors – the swinging in Madison Square Park was bonus time.

I wanted to get a picture or something to commemorate O’s first birthday so when we got to Grand Central, I decided to push further past and head for MOMA where I knew there would be artists with booths set up. We found the perfect little abstract painting done by Martha Murphy. It even looks like there’s the number one in it. AND she was super nice and allowed me to take a picture of her holding Oliver.

A great way to end a great day.