Noah's First Birthday

Dearly Beloved,

Our family would like to send heartfelt thanks and gratitude for the outpour of love, support and generosity that you have all bestowed upon Noah and us as we celebrated his First Birthday. It was an amazing event thanks to you all and we are still opening gifts!

We wish that all of you could have made it but thank you for sharing with us in this celebration from near and far! We truly have wonderful friends and much repayment to make in the years to come.

The party itself was quite a production! I believe we had guests upwards to 150 in attendance! I only wish I could have recorded David at the end of the day as we were processing the day's events; he said: "That was more stressful than our wedding day"!

And I would concur.

Nonetheless, things went smoothly (or we hope that it did).

For those of you who are not familiar with the traditions of the Dol Celebration, a number of items are set infront of the child. Each item symbolizes the child's future. On Noah's table we set out the following:

Baseball Bat
Baseball
Bible
Rice
A spool of thread
Pen
Notebook
Cash

Can you guess what Noah picked?

I was told that David smiled from ear to ear like a proud parent when Noah grabbed the ball and bat :).

Enjoy the pictures and once again, thank you all. We love you very much!

Dave, Grace & Noah

Engrish

Kat in Argentina sent me an email that tickled me pink and made me laugh so hard I almost peed my pants (apologies if that conjures up an unsightly image).

It was so funny, I decided to share it with you all and hope you pee your pants too :)!

David...you gotta love the man.

So last night David, Noah and I were lounging in the bed. Our tummies were full. Giants were up 4 to 1.

All was well with the world.

Noah and I were reading "The Little Red Barn".

We looked at the horses and 'neighed'.
We looked at the dogs and we 'woofed'.
We looked at the chickens and we 'clucked'.
We looked at the pigs and we 'oinked'.
We looked at the cows and we 'moo-ed'.

But then, we came across a pigeon...and we..."(sat in silence)".

What sound do pigeons make? Noah turned to look at me with expectant eyes waiting to hear what sound pigeons make. It has been years since I've seen or made any acquaintance with any pigeon, so my mind came to a blank. In quick desperation I turned to David.

David, what sound do pigeons make?

You know what he said?

He said, "Eee!"

A quick, short, staccato "Eee!"

Now, I'm no city gal, and I must give David the benefit of the doubt given that he was born and raised in San Francisco his entire life, but I'm pretty confident that pigeons don't go "Eee!".

Maybe mice, or bats or squirrels...but I have never in my life heard a pigeon go "Eee!" -- in California or elsewhere, so we can eliminate the possibility of regional dialect.

Now, my concern is not the fact that David does not know what sound pigeons make -- further thought and I was able to recover from the dark recesses of my mind that they 'coo' -- but my concern is that he's been reading with Noah and teaching him other unorthodox and bizarrely inaccurate information.

This is not a singular isolated event.

The other day he was singing nursery rhymes with Noah:

I'm a little teapot,
Yes, I am.
I'm a little teapot,
Yes, I am.
I'm a little teapot,
Yes, I am.
I'm a little teapot,
Yes, I am.
The End.

That IS NOT how the song goes.

But it's funny, so I just let all these small indiscretions go. I'm sure one day, Noah will abruptly turn to Dad and correctly inform him that pigeons "coo" and introduce David to the anatomy of a teapot.