Happy First Birthday to Our Liam!

What a fabulous birthday weekend THAT was!!

Friends and family poured in from all over, and we celebrated our boy's first year of life in a cute little pavilion in our local park.

The rain in the forecast never came, thankfully.  In fact, Mr. Sun gave us brilliant sunshine and a bit more heat than we had hoped for.  Labor Day Weekend was showing us that indeed it is still a Summertime holiday.

This is my favorite photo from the weekend, caught by my wonderful friend and photographer, Britta!

I giggle when I see it because our Mr. Smiles was unfortunately having a melancholy moment, his little sad face and quivering lip appearing at a time that was a pretty big deal.

So why all the tears?

It could have been his dirty diaper.  It could have been the 93-degree heat.  Or, he was hungry and thirsty because, despite my attempts to feed him (breastmilk, water, baby food, and some of my sandwich), he was much more interested in socializing -- and wanted to do only that.  Or maybe he didn't like being the center of attention and our off-key singing of "Happy Birthday."

But, actually, I don't think ANY of these are the reasons for that sad face.  Instead, I'm certain that it had to be this:

He wanted to be in his Grandpa's arms constantly, so I think my father held him all day long, carrying him here and there and keeping him entertained with hugs, kisses, trees, and toys -- except for this time during the day, where I insisted that they ought to let go of each other for a brief moment so that we could do the birthday cake ritual.  And our boy couldn't stand the fact that Grandpa had put him down!  So precious!

And the attachment continued.  When we played a game where Liam sat on the grass and all of our party guests encircled him, Liam was LOVING the attention.  Everyone was calling his name, trying to get him to crawl to them first, which would then earn the victorious person a prize.

He smiled and seemed to love every moment of the attention.  We figured that parents and grandparents should be excluded from the game, since such people would have an unfair advantage, right?

But Liam just kept smiling big and crawled to no one, so eventually we told his grandparents that they could have a try.  As my father excitedly waved his arms and jumped into the crowd, Liam spotted him, reached for him, and then began to cry hysterically that my father didn't come in and scoop him up.  Haha!  So funny!  Poor little guy!

Finally, of course, Grandpa did pick him up again...and all became well in Liam Land.

 

And, lest Liam's other Grandfather feel neglected, the next day (which was his actual birthday), he was completely inseparable from that Grandpa, crying hysterically if anybody else (including me!) tried to hold him.

He cried when Grandpa left the room to use the restroom.  He cried when Grandpa packed his bags and loaded the car.  And at lunch, Liam tried to crawl straight across the table to get from my arms to Grandpa's.  Poor Grandpa had a tough time eating lunch because Liam just did not want to be anywhere else except right in front of Grandpa!

So, this was The Weekend of Grandfathers, leaving the rest of us to feel like a small slice of chopped liver!

Happy birthday, baby boy.  We all love you so much!