Kids are awesome. It’s easy to forget that sometimes, but they always come through with a reminder. This morning Ouest joined me at the bathroom sink to help me shave. “Me help you?” We applied shaving cream together. She takes a handful and applies it one tiny fingertip at a time to my cheek. And you can tell from the look of intense concentration on her face that she is certain that what she is doing is of absolute critical importance. I could have squeezed her flat right there, but then she started singing Happy Birthday and I was finished. Mood completely turned around from the grumpy early morning wake-up call.

That’s right, it was a birthday day today! One year. Crazy. The years are accelerating now. With Ouest it felt like a year took five years. With Lowe it felt like it took five months.

One year ago today I got the biggest scare of my life when he was born. Probably complete over reaction caused by my lack of medical school training, but still. Now boom, he’s walking and babbling.

Maybe it’s because he is such a laid back dude that the time seems to fly by with him. He smiles easily, he snuggles, he kisses, he laughs hysterically, he plays by himself, he picks up books and talks to them, he tries to comfort Ouest when she’s crying even though he is usually the cause, he is just an all around sweet boy. We love you Lowe.

Oh, the cake. So Lowe grabbed a handful of frosting as soon as the cake was put in front of him. Then for five minutes or so he just sort of looked at it. Didn’t taste it. Then started clapping and trying to wipe it off. He didn’t want anything to do with it. Eventually we tried to give him a bite of cake but he just gummed it and spit it back out. Now it was a pretty terrible cake, but not so terrible that kids wouldn’t eat it. Only adults wouldn’t. Lowe didn’t want any though. Ali gave him a few bites of vanilla ice cream and he was done, ready to get out of his chair and move on. Ouest did the same exact thing on her first birthday. Ouest is 40-months-old today.