Celebrating year one of Rubyliciousness.

It rocked.

OK, that picture is not really representative of the day -- it's just so darn cute! She was a super chill, happy camper the whole day -- in record-breaking heat no less -- it just so happens that in putting the hat on her for the picture, I inadvertently snapped the elastic under her chin. Well shoot, that's a sensitive area. I well up when that happens to me. Who can blame her for the tears?

Here, this is better:

Yes, she looked much more like this during the party.

It was intended to be a simple little picnic at the park. Just a few friends, no entertainers, no big megillah. Two weeks and 50 people later, I'm making seven wagon trips from my house to the park and back -- hauling dips, crudities, pitchers (of cucumber/mint and lemon water -- let it not be said that simple means classless thankyouverymuch), chips, tablecloths, fruit salad, and so on and so on. (Shout out to the calvary -- my mom, Pat, Wade, Nik, and Lacey. Without them, we would have served whatever leftovers were in my fridge.) Some Persian kabobs were delivered, and we brought the cake over later on.

The cake. Ohhhhh, the cake.

Originally, I was going to make a banana cake with Nutella buttercream frosting. Bananas are pretty much Ruby's favorite thing in the entire world (today in the car, I showed her I had one for her snack; she was silent for a second, then she started kicking her legs and yelling "NAAA NAAAA!"). But after a botched trial run on the Wednesday before (and realizing that I would have to make enough cake for 50 damn people -- as Wade said, "It can't be done"), I knew that I'd have to order one. So I called my favorite bakery and ordered a banana shortcake: yellow cake, with banana mouse and whole, sliced bananas in the middle, and real whipped cream on top. If you look closely, you can see the airbrushed bananas on the cake and the candy bananas placed on the cake and cupcakes.

I don't care for bananas myself, but damn it, it was Ruby's birthday! My little girl likes bananas, so a banana cake she will have. Sweet Jesus though. This cake -- this cake! -- was ridiculously good. We left it at home in the fridge until the last minute so when we served it, it was cool and creamy. And the bananas were cool and sweet, and the whole thing was just so delicious and cool and not too sweet but just sweet enough... Ahem.

Ruby liked it too.

She didn't just smush her piece around. She actually sat down with her aunties Nikki and Lacey and ate the whole damn thing, fistful by fistful.

Other people enjoyed themselves too. The snarky hipsters...

...the grandmother looking regal despite the heat...

...and the friends (holla pregnant Joey!).

As usual, my mom looked gorgeous.

The other babies had a good time too.

I even got a chance to enjoy the day (sadly, scrunched nose and all, this was the best picture of me all day).

Second to cake-eating, opening presents was probably Ruby's favorite part of the day. She especially loved (and by "loved" I mean "went insane for") Joey and Russ's present: Elmo and Grover. AKA "Wawo" and... well, she doesn't call Grover anything. But she totally says "Wawo."

When we got home and she woke up from her nap, she really went to town. There was a lot of squirrel noises and banging the dolls together. Frequently she would just hug them and sigh.

Such a good day. Such a good time celebrating a whole year of our little sweet potato being around. Happy birthday, Snickerpoodle.

Things I've caught myself saying recently.

Well if you hadn't peed on the floor, you wouldn't be slipping around so much now.

Don't suck on the plastic bag, please.

Mommy's nipples are not for chewing!

Lulu doesn't want to talk on the phone -- please take it out of her mouth.

Wow, standing is fun!

Treading water.

Two weeks ago, Wade asked me, "Wanna go to New York for your birthday?" Um, OK!

So off we went -- sans bebe. EEK! (I should mention that Ruby was in the full throes of massive separation anxiety -- fussing if I put her down for even a moment. So this is perfect timing right? My guilt was only just surpassed by my excitement and love of jet-setting.)

I pumped furiously to reserve at least some breast milk for our trip so Rubes would have a taste of mama while I was gone. Mom graciously moved in for three days (the best, most generous birthday present I've ever received), and we busted a move on Virgin America. We spent a total of 10 hours in the air for actually being in Manhattan for 48 hours. But it was so fun and we saw a bunch of friends (not the least of which was my resickulous picnic in Central Park with Annie-kins and the lovely Miss Kate -- of which I would have pictures IF SHE SENT THEM TO ME), and, of course, I was exhausted when I got back. Is a trip to New York ever relaxing?

So after a week of racing around prepping for and going on the trip (preceded by my stomach bug), we came home to a coughing, feverish, croupy, fussyfussyfussy baby. YAY! So of course she didn't -- couldn't, really -- sleep at all for two days since she was all stuffed up and coughy. Poor kid. It was heartbreaking. "Mama" came out as "Meuh meuh." Pauvrecita! (Though, it must be said, when Amber and Joanne came over for a visit, she completely charmed the socks of them. That's because Ruby is a professional. A professional cute baby.)

She's just now feeling better, but I am still running on fumes. That's OK though, all I have to do is throw the best ever birthday party for a one-year-old this weekend for 45 people (for which I've committed to -- and bragged about! -- making the cake). And then for the following weekend, get the details together for a trip to the wine country with 14 adults and 5 kids (all under one roof).

No problem. I'm on it.

Happy Birthday!

Today...

Guitarist-inventor Les Paul is 93.

Sports commentator Dick Vitale is 69.

Keyboardist Jon Lord of Deep Purple and Whitesnake is 67.

Actor Michael J. Fox is 47.

Actor Johnny Depp is 45.

Actress Gloria Reuben ("The Agency," "ER") is 44.

Bassist Dean Felber of Hootie and the Blowfish is 41.

Bassist Dean Dinning (Toad the Wet Sprocket) is 41.

Musician Ed Simons of the Chemical Brothers is 38.

I'm 32.

Actress Michaela Conlin ("Bones") is 30.

Actress Natalie Portman is 27.

Actress Mae Whitman ("Arrested Development") is 20.

Many happy returns to these remarkable people!

A lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what-have-yous.

Just had a really fun past few days with a stomach bug; I blame tainted crepes from a "Parisian Soiree" on Saturday night. That nicely coincided with a Ruby nap-strike (from two-a-day to one-a-day), which you wouldn't think would make a big difference, but it TOTALLY does. So yeah. I'm just getting my mojo back, now-ish, barely.

Anyhoo, the other day I did this to her hair:



These are wicked cute, agreed. But weirdly, they don't look like Ruby to me. I don't know this piggy-tailed toddler. (Though she's obsessed with the camera these days. I expect every picture to look like this -- her hunting the photographer -- for a while.)

And while I'm on that topic, can I put in a formal protest to her aging? I mean, besides the fact that she changes physically on a daily basis (I AM NOT OK WITH THE DISAPPEARING OF ANY CHUB), she's also becoming way too aware and active. For example, it used to be when I was getting her all lotioned up and dressed after her bath, a tube of cream or a bath toy would occupy her while she lay there, placidly. Now -- NOW -- I find myself trying to lotion and dress a standing, bouncing, cruising baby, all the while shutting drawers (watching for fingers getting crushed) and trying to peel off pieces of toilet paper stuck to still-damp baby thighs. A tube of cream is not doing it these days, people.

One benefit of her burgeoning maturity is that we are signing! "Milk" we had down a month or two ago. "All finished" (which, for Ruby, is a rapid fluttering of the hands) came on board about two weeks ago, followed quickly by "more," during which she looks a bit like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons:

And then today, we mastered "eat"! (Actually, she signed "eat" twice and then I couldn't get her to do it again.) And OK fine, frequently she mixes up "more" and "all finished." Because I want to respect her little 11 and 1/2 month old opinions, when I was feeding her and she would sign "all finished," after five bites, I would scoot her away from the table, thinking "Dear god, I've been overfeeding this child for months." But then I started double-checking with her, asking her "more?" like five times and leaving a bit more food in front of her. Lo and behold, the kid would sign "more" back at me and then proceed to eat a poop-load "more." We're getting there though. The funny thing is now she signs "all finished" when she doesn't want to do any number of things any more: being in her crib, reading, swinging, watching Sesame Street, etc. And now Wade and I do it too when we're done with stuff too. It's a good thing we don't socialize with other people.

What's really amazing is that now that she has these signs, we're actually conversing. For example, we were reading books the other day, and she was sitting in my lap. After a while she got up and was standing by her book case, and I asked her "Ruby, more reading?" and signed that (she knows "read"/"book" even though she doesn't sign it yet). She glanced back briefly at me and signed -- with one hand, very blase -- "all finished." Well, OK then. You knew what I meant; I knew what you meant. A pleasure doing business with you.

Pictorial.

Apologies for the lack of posts, but the words have just not been flowing lately, peeps. Pure, uncut exhaustion hits most nights that I plan on blogging, so what you get are picture blogs intermittently. If I was less tired, I might care more.

BUT! I will share with you a bit of what we did this weekend. Among a ton of other things (it was a full weekend), W, Nik, her friend Aaron, and I went to Disneyland!!! (Yes, sans Ruby. She'll appreciate it later.) We totally forgot to take any pictures, but there's an automatic photo taken of you on Space Mountain, and Aaron took a picture of that picture. It's all very meta.

Here's the zoom-in on the four of us on the ride.

Please note Nikki's look of actual terror, Aaron's look of fake terror, Wade's not looking at all, and me... well, apparently I was hiding.

But this picture still has more entertainment value to be wrung out of it. Please to zoom out.
Oh my god, I love our spaceship-mate!

And then this morning I decided to whip out the camera for some gratuitous Ruby snaps.

Hi Mama!

Mama, what are you holding? Can I see it, Mama? Can I? Please, Mama?

I know, isn't it so funny? How you have that thing in your hand that I find that I must lick and chew on? But how you won't hand it over? Oh that is so funny, Mama.

OK, well no worries, because I'm here now, and you can just hand it to me. Just hand it over, Mama. Just give me that thing to chew on. Do it, Mama. Do it now.

And then I had to put the camera away.

But not before I took a few surreptitious self-portraits in the nursery.


And thus ends the pictorial. I'm going to bed.