Axel successfully crawled his way through his first birthday and first Halloween. He laughed, he cried, he covered his face in cake. Here's the evidence, in pictures:
It's the Strongest Baby in the World! Picture was taken thirty seconds before he twisted off one half of the homemade dumbell, leaving him weight-less for the remainder of Halloween. In case you're wondering about the costume's construction - the arms are pantyhose with pillow stuffing muscles, and I used print-your-own T-shirt iron-ons for tattoos. His tats include a rubber ducky, set of crossed six-shooters, and a "Mom" heart, of course.
Just before the parade, there was a class photo. Sitting in a row while all their parents tried to snap pictures was very confusing for the kids (see evidence above - that's Axel and his adorable friend Mateo). In the rest of the shots, Axel is struggling mightly against his teacher's arm, trying to live up to his costume.
The kids then paraded through the halls. The littlest ones are piled into cribs on wheels. Axel enjoyed being near the cribs at first.
And then he was put inside of the crib, and his formerly happy Halloween took a dark, twisted turn. He seemed to think we wanted him to take a nap, in the middle of the morning, piled up with lots of other babies wearing weird fuzzy outfits, rolling past laughing adults. Understandably, this situation was intolerable.
Luckily he was given an empty file folder by an empathetic soul, and the rest of the parade was spent happily crunching up the folder and graciously waving it at the people he passed.
After the school parade, Axel and I went to a Halloween party at my office, in which Axel tried to break speed records for fastest crawl across a meeting room and underneath a row of chairs, and I tried to keep him from eating door stops and strangling himself with the blind cords. We ended the night answering the door for trick-or-treaters, and getting ready for his birthday party.
And what a party! Here we are, in costume, for the festivities - Sean's the ringleader, I was supposed to be a tightroper walker but I looked more like someone wearing boots who threw on a homemade tutu over her dress and put on a tiara, and Axel was, once again, Mr. Muscles.
I think he's wondering why he's wearing the same shirt two days in a row. That, or why his father's hat is three sizes too small (that's because it was on sale). This picture was taken outside, where much of the party took place. In Denver, it always snows on Halloween - people have become accustomed to wearing long underwear underneath their fairy dresses or ninja costumes. For the first year in who knows how many, it didn't snow this year and the weather was an unseasonable 75 degrees and sunny.
We had cupcakes
A candy-corn blowfish
And chicken and vegetable quesadillas and homemade applesauce. I thought the applesauce was a good idea for a party full of toothless people, but the guests of all ages gravitated toward the (store-bought) quesadillas, graham crackers, fruit, cheese, fantastic squash gnocchi brought by my culinary genius friend, and, of course, the cupcakes.
Axel agreed that the cupcakes were delicious, and he wondered why it had taken us so long to give him a bite of the good stuff. The frosting quickly turned him from a soft-hearted strongman to a green-smeared Hulk-like beast demanding more.
Then there were presents. (We decided to remain silent on the presents/no presents subject and leave it up to our guests.)
After opening, Axel had to test them - via his mouth - to ensure they were up to his high standards.
And then, after a few hours of fun and way too many of preparation (seriously, I spent way too much time getting ready for a one-year-old's birthday - I mean, nobody cared that there were homemade tortilla chips in the shape of pumpkins. And the amount of food! Even if all the people who RSVP'd had made it, I still would've been able to feed a firehouse. Never shop at both Costco and Whole Foods when you're hungry.), it was over. Axel awoke from his late afternoon nap to find his remaining guests had gone, his house was a jumble of bags and foam blocks, and his mother really, really needed a martini.
