Laud is One!
Laud is One!
August 6, 2024
On water day my little campers were excited for “the baby” to have his first birthday! One table 9 camper announced, “yippee! I’m here on Laud’s first birthday! He was born on water day last year!” Laud was born on water day last year – the first one I’d missed in my time working camp, but that was not the same August day as water day this year. So he was not quite a year old with the last day of camp as we waved goodbye to our campers for the school year. Well, I waved, because Laud still doesn’t wave hello or goodbye (he’s been greeting for his whole life, but no wave and no “hi”).
Then we had Laud’s birthday! We don’t usually do much for one year birthdays as I’ve found my babies are rarely interested in anything yet; they want to eat the paper wrapping instead of get to the toy, not really interested in cake or icing yet, and would rather play musical baby than sit still. First birthday parties are more for us to enjoy the baby exploring. Laud was very interested in getting Grandma hugs and Aunt Kathy hugs. He loved pulling stuff out of bags and pulling paper off of toys. He kept handing the paper to one of us when it was too taped! His face would say, “mom, Lucas put too much tape on this one, I can’t get it.”
Cake was fun! We like to make cakes ourselves so that Anastasia, Kimberly, and Theadora can enjoy too without anaphylactic shock, rosacea breakouts, or upset tummies, respectively. This was our chocolate cake and icing which is egg free, canola (rapeseed) oil free, vegetable oil free, and lecithins free. I attempted to make a puppy as Laud loves dogs in real life and as stuffies (you should have seen his face when he realized he got to keep Pooka the stuffy after his 12 month picture). I am soooo not as in touch with my artistic side as I used to be 13 years ago (Jaquline’s teddy bear cake was so much better in looks).
It tasted good!
Laud even enjoyed a few bites! Mostly, he got the icing stuck to his fingers and fed it to me.
He did say “mama” two days before his birthday, but it doesn’t just mean me… it means everything. I’m trying to help him figure out the real meaning of the word like this:
Laud “mamamama”
Me (giving him my full attention) “yes, Laud?”
So far, this attempt at training just makes him giggle.
My baby is one year old. New stage. Now we wait until after the January birthdays for all of us to be odds again (right now it’s a mix of evens and odds). When we all get to odds again, I’ll have four driving girls, four teenagers, one who will be 21, and only three of my littles will be under teen. Wow. Time goes by so quickly.
I wonder where we will be after the January birthdays in five months. I mean, I know where we’ll be living, but what will our story include then? It will be in the first bits of gymnastics competition season for Kimberly, Jillian, and maybe Jaquline (she does her third try out in a few days), Rebeccah and Kimberly will be done with another semester of college, Jaquline will be a licensed learner… I could just keep going. But really, I stop to focus on how grateful I am for the honor of watching their lives grow. I pray for wisdom again as I watch Laud whack his toy hammer on the pegboard (really ingenious toy, the pegs go through to the other side but are attached on both ends so when baby hammers all five through on one side, you flip it and start again with no lost pieces!). I can’t do this without Jesus!
Big sibling giggles erupt as everyone is clustered around the big table playing some online game together. Thank you, Jesus, for the honor of being their mother. Thank you for letting me be your vessel to mother them. Thank you for baby smiles and first birthdays and giggles and boys who love hitting drums and using hammers!
Thank you for reading.
Type at you next time,
~Nancy Tart
