“Oops, I Crapped My Pants!” And other lessons I learned at a 1-year-old’s birthday party

Dave and I attended our very first one-year-old birthday party this weekend. Our old La Jolla neighbors now live in Oakland, where instead of the one-bedroom apartment that we all had in San Diego, they have turned into real grown-ups and purchased a HOUSE. I hear that when you own a home, you can paint the walls, step on what’s called a “lawn” and other fantasy-like experiences. We are VERY happy for them and they have settled in beautifully to the new lifestyle.

This couple, Sarah and Keely, were our first true Californians that we met five years ago when we showed up in San Diego. They both went to UC Berkeley and taught us (okay, ME…Dave never had this issue) that not all Californians are ultra-green hippies who only surf and smoke doobies. On the contrary, Sarah (who, I can fairly state IS still a hippie in some regards) used to be a teacher before getting involved in fundraising. She is absolutely brilliant and her witty remarks will make you laugh so hard you cry without even realizing it. Her husband, Keely, is the quintessential Californian to me (my CURRENT view of Californians…not my prejudiced view from five years ago). By career definition, he is a public relations whiz for a major Fortune 500 company, but he has made it a life priority to not let a job completely define who he is and almost every day involves finding time to surf. He finds surfing is a place where he can relax and be on his own.

But, I digress. Onto the fun part of why one-year-old birthday parties are nothing short of hilarious. Making a short story long, these two people have created this amazing son named Eli. He is completely adorable and is sure to be charming the ladies by the time he’s three. The part that cracked me up most though are the expressions you’re “allowed” to have in public as a one-year-old that we later learn to pacify as adults. Such as this one – what I like to call The Crapper:

I’m not sure if the blog can convey the pure tension that is expressed in his brow line, but it was classic of either, “mommy, I crapped my pants” or it could just as easily mean, “daddy, I don’t want another f#&*$ng can of peas!”

My other favorite expression captured this day is again a mystery.

Does Eli want to say, “My life is so freakin’ hard and I’m not sure how I’m going to make it through the next 20 minutes of this party” or is it, “All I really want is a damn cupcake” or is it, “Seriously, does nobody care that I have snots bigger than my eyeballs on my face right now?” (To be journalistically accurate, I want you to know that Mom & Dad were BOTH by Eli’s side during both of these photos and he was absolutely fine, just considering a meltdown before thinking better of it. He really just wanted to be picked up for a minute while he had 50 new faces circling around him at once…. Fair enough, I would do the same.)

Anyways, Eli got me thinking about how darn hard it is to be a one-year-old. New faces, everyone is always holding you, you can’t quite express exactly what you want to anyone but your mom and dad and on top of all this, you have new parts of your body being “built” every day, such as those adorable two front bottom teeth that Eli is sporting in The Crapper photo.

Ahhh, to be parents. It’s a good thing friends like Sarah & Keely can experience it before us to work out all the kinks. We’ll be begging Eli to babysit for our infant by the time Eli is turning 16 or so…just around the corner.