Yesterday was Kelly’s first birthday. She was sick and Kathy was melancholy.

Kelly’s fever had gotten up to 102 on Friday. Kathy took her to the doctor who said she had a virus and gave her some medicine. She managed to have fun on her birthday, despite her illness. She just took longer naps.

I had not gotten home from work until 1 a.m., so I slept in until about 8:30. I missed Danny being the first to sing happy birthday to her. Kelly often wakes up before Danny and talks to him from her crib until he wakes up. Then they both start talking to each other louder and louder until one of the parents gets up.

Patsy sent Kelly a big box that arrived on Friday. Kelly enjoyed climbing all over the box on Friday. When we were all up Saturday morning, we let Kelly open her birthday box.

It took her a long time to get the box open because she kept looking at us. She couldn’t believe we were letting her get into that box, and I think she was mistaking our laughter with being yelled at.

When she got three flaps open she was surprised to see little stuffed animals in plastic bags. There were about six or seven little stuffed animals. Most were dogs, but one seemed to be a pink mouse. She gave the pink mouse a hug, getting a big awww from Kathy.

There was also a brightly colored box at the bottom of the box. Again, Kelly seemed apprehensive about ripping it open. She would give it a little rip and then look around. She was surprised we were letting her ruin the nicely wrapped box.

Inside was her own place setting with a spoon, bowl, plate, cup and place mat. Later she used her plate to eat hamburger, corn, and sweet potatoes (her favorite for some reason.)

I had to go into the office, so I took Danny and Nicole with me. Then we went over to Mom & Dad’s where we joined them for peach ice cream and ginger snaps. After dessert, the three of us had hamburgers that Dad cooked for us.

Because Kelly was sick, we canceled the family birthday party. Tom and Jeannette came over though that evening with more presents. The first one Kelly opened was a baby doll. Kathy says she will never forget the look of wonder and surprise on Kelly’s face when she unwrapped the present and saw a baby in the box. “Baba” she started saying over and over impatiently reaching for the baby as Kathy got it out of the box.

She could not have put on a better show for her Grandpa.

She also opened up presents from us that included a couple of outfits and new shoes. Here favorite things seemed to be her pink mouse, her baby doll, and her new shoes.

She used her new bowl and spoon from Patsy to eat a piece of her cake. She was much neater than Danny who rubbed chocolate icing all over his head on his first birthday. Kelly insisted on using her spoon. Everyone started talking about how she might be left handed. I don’t know why. She was using the spoon with her right hand to chop up her cake. That’s what she did. Instead of eating her cake, she chopped it up in her bowl. Eventually she put the spoon in her mouth and tasted the icing. It didn’t take her long to start pushing cake into her mouth with her hands. When she was done, she threw the last piece of cake on the floor, then she threw her spoon, and finally her bowl. She was having a fun birthday, despite being sick.

Kathy and I watched “Passenger 57” after the kids went to bed. Kelly woke up, though, so I brought her down to lay on the floor with us. At one point, I looked to see where she was playing. She was trying to put one of her high-top sneakers on. Kelly watched with great interest as I slipped on the shoes and tied the laces. Kathy laughed as I stood Kelly up to let her try them out. (She had taken 12 steps before Tom and Jeannette had come over.)

The problem with standing up was that Kelly couldn’t see down to her new shoes very well. So Kelly stood on her head to get a better look at her shoes.

Kelly added the words “shoes” and “thank you” to her vocabulary. We had counted twelve words the other day, including: juice, mama, dada, doggie, cookie, uh oh, banana, bottle, bye bye, birdie, night night, and no no.

Kathy already is missing her baby.