Rookie Dad: It's been a year

It was a year ago yesterday when The Youngling finally graced us with her presence. I won't go in to alot of details from that day other than to say that the 22 hours leading up to her birth was, well, lengthy. I don't care to ever sleep in a hospital room recliner again. It's just not as comfortable as you think it would be.

But in the end it was all worth it because we got to see her eat a whole bunch of cake on Sunday. Us and about 20 others, actually. Yes, we broke the big rule that I've seen in parenting newsletters and magazines that says "just have the grandparents there and keep it small, your one year old will be riddled with anxiety and likely cry and crawl in to the corner with a huge crowd around her". Those magazines and newsletters aren't worth the ink or bytes used to create them.

The Youngling showed no signs of anxiety and was totally herself. Right down to refusing to eat anything on a plate. So the cake went directly on the tray of her high chair and she meticulously ate the frosting then got all up in that cake's chocolatey business. The wedge of two-layer cake was eventually smashed in to a gooey mass and she was working on building a coffee grounds-style beard but with cake.

The most impressive fact was that The Youngling kept her hair clean in spite of taunts and encouragement from her aunts to do otherwise. The clean-up was easy, too. Rather than try to clean her with a wash cloth or baby wipes we just gave her a quick bath and got back to the grind of opening her presents. After those hours of excitement she took a three hour nap and we cleaned up cake.