Turning One in a Time of Coronavirus

When I started preparing for E’s first birthday party three months ago I never would have imagined the world would look the way it does today.

We made the decision last week to postpone E’s first birthday party, which should have been today.  I know he didn’t miss it. It was the right thing to do, even before it became mandated by the state and city to do so. Natsunoya was very understanding in letting me move the date (though just a few days later they would have had to). We packed up all the decorations I finally bought. And I fortunately had never gotten around to buying the centerpieces (which were plants) or the soda. I do have six cases of High Noon seltzers (because that was important, obviously) but I’m not complaining.

Today was just any other Sunday for him. Business as usual. Which maybe, given everything, is a good thing.

For someone who likes to plan and for things to be a certain way (poor E, I know) this was a hard pill to swallow. Todd’s mom was supposed to fly in for a week to celebrate his birthday with us and postponed her trip. We had planned to take E to the Aulani Character Buffet (which we also decided to cancel) and had wanted to take him to the beach (which the weather could not even cooperate with).

**Now let me pause here and say, I realize how INCREDIBLY fortunate we are. We are healthy. We are safe. Todd and I both have jobs. And we have a charming, very easy, happy baby boy who loves to smile, eat, and sleep and has managed not to kill his parents for one whole year. We are very, very lucky.**

Instead, I don’t remember what we fed him for breakfast or lunch. We opened the water table we bought him and he splashed around (gleefully!) outside for a bit. At 1:30 in the afternoon I finally decided to go out and get a cake for him and ended up having to “settle” (I know, first world problems because they’re delish) a lemon crunch cake from Aiea Bowl. They didn’t have any bakers in (not sure if it was just the time or day or because of Coronavirus) so we didn’t even write his name on the cake. We did take out from Cattle Company, which was delicious and well timed since the closed the next day. Also, E takes after his momma and loves him some prime rib. He ate half of mine.

We forgot to sing him happy birthday but I did get to stuff him into the ridiculous outfit I got him (yay, for small joys) and he did get to smash up all the lemon crunch cake he could fit into his little body for a solid five minutes.

And in six months (hopefully) he’ll have a rocking 18-month birthday party with all his baby friends and our family around him to sing and eat cake. How many babies get to say they had an 18-month party after all?

And after everything we’re going through… in six months celebrating with friends and family and cake will probably feel even sweeter.