Ethan's 1st birthday

Ethan turned 1 yesterday so we took him to Jungle Gym's Playland, an indoor amusement park for kids where adults ride free (if you can squeeze your little backside in the rides). We had taken McKenzie 3 or 4 times and Ethan had never been so it was time to show him what living is all about. McKenzie loved it at his age! We got all sorts of reaction from her and she made all the rides even more interesting by rocking the swings back and forth, etc. We had great anticipation. Ethan smiled ... maybe twice. Later, we opened presents and let Ethan dig into his cake. After sticking one hand in the chocolate and noticing that it came back with a big globby brown mess, it took Ethan awhile to touch it again. Eventually he got up the courage to stick his pointer finger in the cake and then lick his finger, making a loud "pop" as it came out of his mouth. He proceeded to eat the cake in this way "dip, lick, pop ... dip, lick, pop" until he was done. It was cute...but still so very nonchalant. In fact, we really didn't get much feedback from Ethan the whole day until bathtime. He had a blast splashing around in the water with McKenzie and stomping his foot down the slippery side of the tub until he would fall. Then after baths, he and McKenzie found an empty laundry basket and laughter could be heard out the windows, down the street and around the corner as they threw balls in the basket and climbed in and out. Next year maybe we'll skip Jungle Jim's and head straight to the laundry baskets for some real fun. The moral: there's no wrong way to celebrate a birthday.