Happy Birthday: Celebrating Billy’s First Year

By The Red Tent, February 9, 2015

When people were wishing my little boy a happy birthday, it repeatedly came with the by-line “Wow, one year already? I feel like he was just born!”.

I understand the feeling. I acknowledge how fast time goes when we have the growth of children as markers, but strangely, to me, it felt like a year had passed. It was a long haul, the beginning of his life, made longer by the sleeplessness I suffered. There was a time I didn’t sleep for longer than 10-15 minute intervals for almost three months, and even though I loved him intensely, I’m certain I lost my mind.

Now I find myself in that wonderful place of reaping the rewards of our efforts — a little boy who is simply divine, a bond between him and his sister which makes me woozy to witness, and the freedom which comes when babies are not so little anymore. We are cruising through family life with an ease I’m wholeheartedly embracing.

This past week we celebrated the birth and life of our gorgeous boy with our families, and it was a good place to be: that place where all my favourite things intersect –family and colour and celebration and presents and the sense that something special is taking place. Next to coffee and cute red shoes, Birthday Parties are of the Best Things Ever category.

A sweet little first birthday, in photos….

Billy’s birthday eve, when my parents came over to sneak him cake and shower him with love.

Which was magnified in the Best Things Ever department when Joel and I stayed up late blowing up balloons and getting presents ready and dusting the house with birthday magic, which feels a lot like Christmas Eve to me. We were high that night, and at one point, Joel looked at me and said, “Our boy is one”. I was reminded again how binding it is to realize that the love you feel for your child is felt with the same intensity as it is by somebody else.