Baby Birthday Parties

One of the things that I've been most surprised about as a new parent is how much fun kid birthday parties can be. Paige is just, over the past month or two, getting to the point that she's really interacting with other kids. For her birthday, May 19th, we threw her a small party here at the house. Five baby girls showed up, ranging from 9 to 16 months. They all played on the floor and around Paige's "old" jumper (Paige is in the foreground), and seemed to have a great time interacting with the new toys and each other.

Today, we went to a local park to celebrate the first birthday of one of those girls. We brought a blanket, and the birthday girl, another baby, and Paige all sat there (or, in the birthday girl's case, stood from time to time!) on the blanket and played. They crawled around one another, pulled toys out of each others' hands, babbled...in short, we parents had a wonderful time watching them.

I think these parties are the first times that I've really had the feeling that Paige is growing out of being a baby and becoming a little kid. It's exciting.